Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Faced with 49 va­can­cies across 27 schools, the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools’ Board of Ed­u­ca­tion are con­sid­er­ing ap­peal­ing a High Court rul­ing that dis­missed their chal­lenge against changes to the re­cruit­ment process for teach­ers in de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools.

The Pres­by­ter­ian Board warned it would “strong­ly re­sist any at­tempt to frus­trate us in­to giv­ing up any of its rights se­cured by the Con­cor­dat by the de­vice of mass-re­cruit­ment ex­er­cis­es which de­lay re­cruit­ment of teach­ers.”

On Mon­day, Jus­tice West­min James ruled that the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (TSC) de­ci­sion to ad­ver­tise for Teacher I (Pri­ma­ry) po­si­tions in all de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools was in ac­cor­dance with the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Reg­u­la­tions. He al­so held that the long­stand­ing prac­tice of sub­mit­ting un­so­licit­ed ap­pli­ca­tions with board rec­om­men­da­tions did not have con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion.

De­spite the rul­ing, the court af­firmed that de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards re­tain the right to rec­om­mend can­di­dates nec­es­sary to pre­serve the char­ac­ter of their schools.

In a state­ment from the Pres­by­ter­ian Board, it was stat­ed that “Nei­ther the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion nor the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can ap­point a teacher to a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school with­out the ap­proval of the Board.”

Un­der the new process, de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards must sub­mit a list of va­can­cies to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, who will for­ward it to the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion for ad­ver­tise­ment.

Once ap­pli­ca­tions are re­ceived, the de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards will be pro­vid­ed with copies to make rec­om­men­da­tions af­ter con­duct­ing in­ter­views, the Board said.

It not­ed that the mass re­cruit­ment ex­er­cise un­der­tak­en by the TSC in 2023 halt­ed the usu­al process of ap­point­ing teach­ers as va­can­cies arose. Since then, the Pres­by­ter­ian Board has been un­able to rec­om­mend any new teach­ers from the mass re­cruit­ment ap­pli­ca­tions.

The Board said it cur­rent­ly has 49 va­can­cies across 27 schools, af­fect­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 800 stu­dents. This fig­ure does not in­clude tem­po­rary va­can­cies due to teach­ers on spe­cial leave, ma­ter­ni­ty leave, or ex­tend­ed sick leave.

“Our prin­ci­pals, work­ing to­geth­er with the Board, have put mea­sures in place to mit­i­gate against learn­ing loss by af­fect­ed stu­dents. How­ev­er, it does not ad­dress the re­al prob­lem of fill­ing teacher va­can­cies in our schools,” the Board stat­ed.

Cit­ing an ed­i­to­r­i­al from a news­pa­per on March 12, 2025, the Board agreed that the TSC’s ef­fi­cien­cy re­mains a con­cern.

“Ex­act­ly why the TSC de­cid­ed to re­ject this prac­tice 61 years af­ter the Con­cor­dat is not clear. But, like most State en­ti­ties, the com­mis­sion is not ex­act­ly a mod­el of ef­fi­cien­cy. That cre­at­ed is­sues with fill­ing va­can­cies,” the ed­i­to­r­i­al stat­ed.

The Board high­light­ed de­lays in the re­cruit­ment process, not­ing that the TSC has yet to in­ter­view ap­pli­cants who ap­plied in 2018 for se­nior teacher po­si­tions or those who ap­plied in 2022 for prin­ci­pal or vice prin­ci­pal roles. Some of­fi­cers have been act­ing in po­si­tions for up to ten years with­out re­ceiv­ing for­mal ap­point­ments or act­ing al­lowances. The Board al­so not­ed that a sim­ple teacher trans­fer takes an av­er­age of three months to be ap­proved.

“How then will va­can­cies for teach­ers be filled prompt­ly to en­sure class­es are not with­out teach­ers? Va­can­cies are pil­ing up with no at­tempts be­ing made to find a so­lu­tion to the prob­lem,” the Board stat­ed.