T&T Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) president Lynsley Doodhai says he has received several reports that students involved in a violent protest against teachers at the Ste Madeleine Secondary School are being coached before facing a team of Ministry of Education investigators.
Doodhai made the claim yesterday, as he said Education Minister Anthony Garcia was fed wrong information on the incident. He was speaking specifically to the fact that Garcia claimed no teacher was struck with bottles of water and soft drink thrown at them by students during a legitimate protest outside the school on Monday.
Doodhai said teachers and a television cameraman shooting the protest were allegedly struck by the students, who had staged a counter protest behind the gates while their teachers engaged in a placard protest outside the compound.
Garcia visited the school on Tuesday to get a first hand report of what transpired and in an effort to restore peace. He has ordered an investigation and is expected to get the report today.
The T&T Guardian was also told by several school sources that on Wednesday, several of the students who were ‘ringleaders’ in the protest spent the majority of the day being “coached by certain administrative staff” for their interviews with the investigator.
The source said in light of the alleged coaching, several teachers at the school do not believe the investigation is going to be fair.
But Doodhai said TTUTA will wait until the investigation is completed before making any statements on it’s fairness.
There was no response to queries sent to the Education Ministry’s communications department and calls to Garcia’s cellphone also went unanswered yesterday.