The Teachers’ strike: The children speak

GTU executives speaking at a press conference

Employing phrases ranging in severity from ‘pi..ed off’ to ’frustrated’ ‘(eight children attending state-run secondary schools in Region Four last week expressed to the Stabroek Business their concern over the likelihood of them being unable to fill the tuition gap created by the recently ended protracted teachers’ strike, which will now have to be filled, somehow, prior to the commencement of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) scheduled for mid- next year.

The eight children, members of a single community but attendees of various Secondary Schools in Region Four, all told this newspaper that they were fearful that serious difficulties may now arise in filling the tuition gap created by the absence of teachers from the classroom. One sixteen year-old told the Stabroek Business that while the students are all aware of the fact that in the final analyses it was they who had been left holding the (proverbial) ‘baby,’ in her particular instance, the strike has meant that “there is a whole lot to make up before CXC comes around.”