A senior teacher at the South Oropouche Government Primary School was prevented from entering her workplace by protesting parents yesterday.
The angry parents, holding up placards, formed a human barricade outside the school compound, blocking her vehicle.
The police were called in and the teacher was escorted into the building.
But the parents threatened to keep their children at home until the teacher was removed.
Desiree Scott, secretary of the Parent Teacher Association, claimed the teacher was not acting in a professional manner.
“She is calling the African children all kinds of names and making false accusations against a male teacher because she don’t like him,” she said.
Scott said several reports were made to the Ministry of Education but nothing was done.
“Only after the protest this morning the Ministry called and asked for us to come to a meeting, but we not going because we begging for a meeting so long,” she said.
The Ministry of Education stated the matter was being investigated and a school supervisor had been assigned to meet with parents.
The teacher remained inside the empty classroom yesterday, looking out at the protesting parents.
“We need that woman out of the school because she is causing the standard of the school to drop. We heard she is turning away parents going to register children at the school. And we are not sending our children until she leave,” Scott said.
This protest comes on the heels of other attempts to block a teacher and a school principal from taking up duties at their school.
Tunapuna Hindu School principal Sita Gajadharsingh-Nanga was locked out of her school last term after clashes with Education Board of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS).
Gajadharsingh-Nanga initially requested a transfer out of the school, then later waivered in her decision to do so.
On January 8, the first day of the school term for the new year, she was reinstated and returned amid threats of protests from members of the school PTA.
At the ASJA Girls’ College at San Fernando, Economics teacher Patricia Mohammed was blocked from entering her classroom by angry members of the school’s Parent Enhancement Association and ASJA board president Yacoob Ali.
They claimed Mohammed was “indisciplined” and they blamed her for the suspension last term of the school’s principal by the Ministry of Education.
Parents blocked the corridor leading to the staff room for nearly an hour, before police officers intervened and ordered them to allow the teacher to enter.
