Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent jump in COVID-19 cas­es and the an­tic­i­pat­ed spike to come in a few days now has ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers ex­press­ing con­cern about the risks stu­dents may face in the com­ing weeks, as Stan­dard Five stu­dents are set to sit the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) on Thurs­day (Au­gust 20) and schools are card­ed to re­open short­ly af­ter on Sep­tem­ber 1.

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent Lance Mot­t­ley has al­ways main­tained the SEA ex­am should not be post­poned, as life must go on in the face of the pan­dem­ic - al­beit with more cau­tion. How­ev­er, the re­cent record­ing of over 270 cas­es in less than four weeks is now rais­ing a few eye­brows over the safe­ty of the ex­am with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“As we get clos­er to it and as the cas­es rise, be­cause it’s on­ly pru­dent of us to ask the ques­tion as we get clos­er—is it safe to con­tin­ue?” Mot­t­ley said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

He said among oth­er things which need to be ven­ti­lat­ed with the Min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion and Health is the re­open­ing of schools card­ed for Sep­tem­ber 1.

“We have held the po­si­tion that we can­not con­tin­ue to keep the coun­try locked down but we have to be able to re­open it in a safe way and we need to dis­cuss how safe­ly we can re­open our schools so that the schools do not be­come the epi­cen­tre of the spread of the virus,” Mot­t­ley said.

Much like Mot­t­ley, Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tions PRO Shamil­la Ra­heem al­so be­lieves a meet­ing is need­ed with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to eval­u­ate the safe­ty pro­to­cols. How­ev­er, she does not be­lieve it is fea­si­ble to re­open schools as planned if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue.

“I don’t see Sep­tem­ber com­ing for school to re­open be­ing pos­si­ble at all … It’s quite scary to let our chil­dren go back to school in Sep­tem­ber—it’s quite alarm­ing and not safe at all. I don’t rec­om­mend it and our or­gan­i­sa­tion is not go­ing to be sup­port­ing like that,” Ra­heem said in an in­ter­view.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas mean­while said it was too soon for her to make any pro­nounce­ment. How­ev­er, she as­sured that they were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the de­vel­op­ments and would await com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Min­istry of Health.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Rachiel Ram­samooj, ad­min­is­tra­tor of the SEA Par­ents’ Sup­port Group on Face­book, who said sev­er­al par­ents have al­ready in­di­cat­ed they will not be send­ing their chil­dren to school in Sep­tem­ber un­less it’s safe.

“In or­der for schools to re­open, we need to have some sort of stricter mea­sures to re­duce the rate of in­fec­tions,” Ram­samooj said.

“Based on what pub­lic health of­fi­cials are say­ing, the spread is con­nect­ed to gath­er­ings…bars, re­li­gious func­tions, et cetera. The adults are the ones bring­ing the virus home to the chil­dren. If schools re­open in two weeks, that may have a domi­no ef­fect caus­ing a fur­ther in­crease.”