KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Some 19,000 Stan­dard Five pupils get­ting ready to sit the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion on Au­gust 20 yes­ter­day re­turned to class­es for the first since COVID-19 forced a shut­down of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. De­spite this, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) plans to raise con­cerns over the de­lay in de­liv­ery of sani­ti­sa­tion sup­plies to some schools with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to­day.At 4 pm yes­ter­day, TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia De Fre­itas was still col­lect­ing feed­back from some re­gions.

De Fre­itas told Guardian Me­dia that the min­istry should have de­liv­ered sup­plies be­fore yes­ter­day to en­sure all schools fol­lowed the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 guide­lines for schools. She said prin­ci­pals should not have had to dip in­to school funds for these things.
She al­so said she was not in­formed whether any school had re­ceived ther­mal scan­ners for mea­sur­ing pupil and staff’s tem­per­a­tures and ad­mit­ted some schools that re­quired mi­nor re­pairs were still await­ing work. 
She al­so raised con­cerns about phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing for pupils of the San­ta Flo­ra Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry school who moved to the Pa­lo Seco Beach Camp fa­cil­i­ty in 2015, af­ter they had to aban­don their ram­shackle school. She said be­cause of the fa­cil­i­ty’s size, phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing was al­most im­pos­si­ble, so the min­istry moved the pupils to the Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

How­ev­er, this has now re­sult­ed in two schools in one fa­cil­i­ty.

As the min­istry plans to re­open schools for all stu­dents in Sep­tem­ber, De Fre­itas said di­a­logue is need­ed be­tween the min­istry and all stake­hold­ers to en­sure a smooth restart. She said plan­ning is nec­es­sary, as there will be a larg­er vol­ume of pupils gath­er­ing while COVID-19 still pos­es a threat.
Mean­while, there was a smooth trick­ling of pupils en­ter­ing schools through­out T&T yes­ter­day as they re­turned to class­es af­ter a forced lay­off in which they had to ac­cess class­es via on­line means.

Some de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools had their own hand-held ther­mome­ters and staff in­struct­ed pupils to wash their hands be­fore en­ter­ing the class­rooms.
Equipped with her mask, Merene Singh dropped off her son at the Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian in San Fer­nan­do, still con­cerned about safe­ty at the school. Singh wor­ried about pupils be­ing able to prop­er­ly ad­here to the safe­ty rules.

In prepa­ra­tion for the re­open­ing, she said her fam­i­ly prac­tised ways to stay clean, sani­tise and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing with her son.
At the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, Shi­raz Jaleel was ex­cit­ed that his son re­turned to school, es­pe­cial­ly as he will get much-need­ed SEA prepa­ra­tion. Jaleel said the school pre­pared a lengthy no­tice to par­ents about sani­tis­ing, use of face masks and oth­er health guide­lines which his fam­i­ly pre­pared his son to fol­low.
“We went through the list with him to en­sure that he would have a very good and safe day,” Jaleel told Guardian Me­dia.

“He was all ex­cit­ed and pre­pared. He want­ed to come out to get this done so that he would be ful­ly pre­pared for the ex­am­i­na­tions and to get it over and done with. Dur­ing the COVID pe­ri­od, teach­ers were send­ing work and he was keep­ing up. This here is just an ex­ten­sion and I would say he is ready.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 guide­lines for schools, per­son­nel are to use in­frared ther­mome­ters to check the tem­per­a­tures of any­one en­ter­ing a school. Those with high tem­per­a­tures will be moved to shad­ed ar­eas and retest­ed. Any­one with flu-like symp­toms will be de­nied en­try. In the case of pupils, they will be quar­an­tined and the school will con­tact their par­ents.

School desks must be suf­fi­cient­ly spaced and vis­i­tors must wear masks.
In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said pri­ma­ry schools suc­cess­ful­ly re­opened for SEA stu­dents and pupils and teach­ers re­turned un­der strict health and safe­ty guide­lines.
“Prin­ci­pals, school su­per­vi­sors and of­fi­cials of oth­er di­vi­sions of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion have been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to pre­pare schools for the com­mence­ment of class­es to­day, Mon­day, Ju­ly 20, 2020. Class­rooms have been set up so that the phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, as well as, clean­ing and sani­tis­ing pro­to­cols are ob­served,” the re­lease stat­ed.
The min­istry said there was a full at­ten­dance of prin­ci­pals through­out the coun­try and full at­ten­dance of teach­ers in the Ca­roni, St Patrick, Port-of-Spain, South East­ern and St George East ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts, while there was a 99 per cent turnout in the North East­ern and Vic­to­ria dis­tricts. Among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, there was a 93-95 per cent at­ten­dance, it said.

“Par­ents and guardians are en­cour­aged to send their Stan­dard Five chil­dren to school to pre­pare for the up­com­ing SEA ex­am­i­na­tion as their health and safe­ty is as­sured. It is in the best in­ter­est of the stu­dents to take ad­van­tage of this op­por­tu­ni­ty,” the min­istry said.

“The ‘Guide­lines for the Re­open­ing of Schools’ were draft­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Health and were sent to prin­ci­pals.

School su­per­vi­sors have al­so been vis­it­ing these schools to sup­port prin­ci­pals in en­sur­ing that all health pro­to­cols are ob­served.”