President of the T.A. Marryshow Community College (TAMCC) Lecturers Association (TLA), Adunni Johnson has described as “totally inaccurate” a news item broadcasted on the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN) that students at the college engaged themselves in strike action in an attempt to strike a deal with the teachers that would see them returning to the classroom amid the ongoing industrial impasse between the lecturers and the College Council.
The students were seen with placards on November 28 calling for the operations at the College to return to normalcy as the ongoing impasse was affecting their tertiary education.
According to the GBN news item, the students took strike action in an attempt to reach an “agreement with the teachers themselves… so that they could go back to the classroom” and were not directly siding with the teachers in support of the industrial action taken.
Johnson said that the GBN reporter clearly misunderstood the issue as “the students strike action had nothing to do with the teachers but with the fact that they wanted to return to the classroom”.
“It wasn’t really an attempt to have an arrangement or any discussions with us as lecturers, to plead to the lecturers unilaterally without a solution to come back to the classroom because I think that they understood the position that we were in. So, I think (that) they were just trying to highlight the situation that they are in at the college”, he told THE NEW TODAY.
“So, I think that it, the GBN report was totally inaccurate and misleading. The students’ actions is warranted to highlight the situation that exist at the college and was not a situation where the students tried to highlight that they need us or try to have any coordination with us or discussion with us to try to satisfy the needs that they have – that is credible and I think it was just a means to highlight what is actually happening and for the stakeholders to really take hold of what is happening.
The students have not had full classes since the lecturer’s commenced industrial action for outstanding increments owed to them for over 6 years, approximately four weeks ago.