TTUTA president Antonia de Freitas is in full support of the Minister of Education’s decision to order 9,000 low-scoring Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) pupils to attend remedial classes in the vacation.
During a press conference on Friday, Minister Nyan Gadsby-Dolly announced that over 9,000 students, who were placed into schools despite scoring under 50 and 30 percent, or those who required additional resources will be asked to access a vacation revision program funded by the Government at over 26 secondary schools throughout the country.
De Freitas said the Education Ministry and the division in Tobago have run programmes like that in the past, however, she is calling for more social intervention to support such students, so that in five years time they would not be still struggling.
While she supported the initiative, De Freitas said teacher engagement for these vacation classes must be in line with a 1985 special tribunal judgement.
“Teachers must do it on their own volition.
“All we’d want to know is they are compensated for it, and have regular working hours and good conditions of work.”
She also stated that the ministry should discuss logistics with TTUTA, such as pupil accommodation in schools if under repair.
The remedial vacation programme is scheduled to run for four weeks between July 18 and August 12 and would be coordinated by school principals to allow for these students to adapt to face to face classes and increase academic capacity.
The MoE said the cost was estimated to be $10 million.
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