Tuesday, February 7 2012

THE Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) is calling on the Ministry of Education to regularise terms and conditions of employment — including proper salaries — of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) teachers.

ECCE teachers staged a protest outside the Ministry of Education Head Office in St Clair to back their demands for an increase in the $2,600 salary, and among other demands, for security in tenure of employment.

Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Minister in the Ministry of Education Winston De Coteau came out of their offices to see the protesting teachers. Some of the teachers’ placards read, “Challenging any Minister to help me spend $2,600 a month. Pre-school teachers need food card too!” and “Pensioners benefitting more than pre-school teachers. What a shame Mr Minister!”

Gopeesingh and De Coteau met with TTUTA and the ECCE representatives in a one and a half hour meeting. TTUTA and the ECCE representatives were not satisfied with the outcome of the meeting, but Gopeesingh told a media briefing afterwards that the ministry has asked the representatives to write their concerns. He said they will then meet the week after Carnival to address the issues.

The People’s Partnership Government, he said inherited the anomalies in the salaries of the ECCE teachers and it was an issue the ministry was addressing. TTUTA second vice president Orville Carrington told the media after the meeting that, “nothing much has changed.”

They were told, as they have been told over the past five years, he said that the Education Ministry has to get approval from the Public Management Consulting Division (PMCD) in the Ministry of Public Administration, and the Ministry of Finance to make necessary changes to regularise their situation.

Prior to the meeting, Carrington told Newsday that TTUTA wants the ministry to appoint all ECCE teachers in established positions, and that they be paid proper salaries. At present there are two categories of ECCE teachers. Those in permanent positions who are paid “the abysmally low salary of $2,600 a month, and contracted teachers who are paid $5,000 a month.”

Carrington said that there is no security of tenure for the contracted teachers. Some of the contracts expired in April 2010 and have not been renewed.

The education ministry, he said has been asking some of the teachers who have been in the system for more than a decade, and in some cases two decades to apply for their jobs as contracted employees to receive the $5,000 salaries.