Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing Bel­mont Sec­ondary School have in­ten­si­fied calls for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion from ed­u­ca­tion au­thor­i­ties, warn­ing they are pre­pared to shut down the in­sti­tu­tion for a day if long­stand­ing con­cerns over lead­er­ship, safe­ty and stu­dent wel­fare are not ad­dressed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, for­mer head of the school’s Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA), Shur­lan­da Mal­colm, said con­di­tions at the school have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in re­cent months.

“Some of the re­ports are that stu­dents are com­ing in with knives. Class­es are be­ing re­duced to as lit­tle as two sub­jects a day be­cause of high staff ab­sen­teeism. Par­ents are fed up and tired. If it has to come to shut­ting down the school for a day, we will take that ac­tion,” Mal­colm said.

She al­so point­ed to the loss of ex­tracur­ric­u­lar pro­grammes, in­clud­ing foot­ball, bas­ket­ball and net­ball, which she said pre­vi­ous­ly helped main­tain dis­ci­pline and stu­dent en­gage­ment.

Mal­colm said the con­tin­ued ab­sence of a sub­stan­tive­ly ap­point­ed prin­ci­pal has cre­at­ed in­sta­bil­i­ty and weak­ened ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the in­sti­tu­tion.

She fur­ther al­leged that bul­ly­ing in­ci­dents are wide­spread and of­ten not prop­er­ly ad­dressed, cit­ing a re­cent stab­bing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a stu­dent.

“It can­not be busi­ness as nor­mal. The bul­ly­ing is out of con­trol. Par­ents are afraid to speak out be­cause they fear their chil­dren may be tar­get­ed,” she said.

The con­cerns raised by par­ents and Mal­colm were echoed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe, who said the sit­u­a­tion at Bel­mont Sec­ondary re­flects wider sys­temic chal­lenges af­fect­ing schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ashe said the union has al­ready en­gaged the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) on the slow pace of fill­ing va­can­cies.

“One of the agen­da items when we met with the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion was the length of time it is tak­ing to ap­point teach­ers and prin­ci­pals. This is not unique to Bel­mont. It is hap­pen­ing across the sys­tem,” Ashe said.

He added that there ap­pears to be a break­down in re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­tween the TSC and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

“What we are see­ing is a pass­ing of the buck. The com­mis­sion is say­ing one thing, the min­istry is say­ing an­oth­er. Mean­while, schools are left with­out the per­son­nel they need to func­tion prop­er­ly,” he said.

Ashe al­so raised con­cern about the non-re­new­al of con­tracts for stu­dent sup­port ser­vices per­son­nel since No­vem­ber last year, warn­ing that this un­der­mines ef­forts to ad­dress dis­ci­pline is­sues.

“The Gov­ern­ment has in­di­cat­ed that dis­ci­pline in schools is a pri­or­i­ty. But how do you treat with dis­ci­pline if you re­move the very sup­port staff who help teach­ers man­age stu­dents? In the ab­sence of those re­sources, I do not see the sit­u­a­tion im­prov­ing,” he said.

He fur­ther point­ed to the preva­lence of short-term con­tracts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in To­ba­go, where many teach­ers and sup­port work­ers re­main on month-to-month arrange­ments with­out se­cu­ri­ty of tenure.

Mal­colm al­so raised gov­er­nance con­cerns, claim­ing that mem­bers of the lo­cal school board have not been paid for sev­er­al years and that en­gage­ment be­tween par­ents and the act­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion has been lim­it­ed.

De­spite ac­knowl­edg­ing the com­mit­ment of many teach­ers at the school, she in­sist­ed that mean­ing­ful change must be­gin with de­ci­sive lead­er­ship re­form.

“A fish rots from the head. We need a new prin­ci­pal and a prop­er ap­point­ment so Bel­mont can be re­set,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath for a com­ment, but calls went unan­swered.