So far just over 8,000 Forms Four to Six stu­dents have been vac­ci­nat­ed and are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the class­rooms come Oc­to­ber 4, when phys­i­cal school re­sumes.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ad­vised that on­ly vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms Four to Six would be al­lowed to re­turn next month.

Of­fi­cials said, “This would re­main in ef­fect for both teach­ing and prac­ti­cal ses­sions.”

“Arrange­ments to fa­cil­i­tate teach­ing and learn­ing at these in­sti­tu­tions are on­go­ing, and the Re­open­ing Guide­lines will be made avail­able to Prin­ci­pals with­in the com­ing week. Teach­ers and ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents of this co­hort are ex­pect­ed to re­port to schools phys­i­cal­ly for class­es.”

The Min­istry of Health (MOH) has es­ti­mat­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 37,000 stu­dents be­tween the ages of 12 and 18 have so far been vac­ci­nat­ed.

This, out of the ap­prox­i­mate 90,000 stu­dent pop­u­la­tion el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive Pfiz­er—the on­ly vac­cine which has been ap­proved by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) for use in chil­dren 12 years and old­er.

Es­ti­mat­ing this coun­try’s co­hort of Forms Four to Six stu­dents to be around 32,000—Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly yes­ter­day re­vealed the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) had un­der­tak­en a sur­vey to as­sess the vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus of this group as they plan for a re­turn to the phys­i­cal class­room on Oc­to­ber 4.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via What­sApp, she con­firmed, “We have re­ceived, to date, 16,235 re­spons­es of which 8,430 in­di­cat­ed they had been vac­ci­nat­ed.”

Pressed about the low num­bers be­ing record­ed present­ly, the Min­is­ter cau­tioned, “We will not know the num­bers un­til they turn out on the day.”

Mean­while, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Teach­ers are not man­dat­ed to be vac­ci­nat­ed at this time to re­port for du­ty.”

She in­di­cat­ed the min­istry en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with all stake­hold­ers with re­gards to the re­turn to the class­rooms.

“Schools will be re­quired to sub­mit to the MOE, on a tem­plate to be pro­vid­ed, their in­di­vid­ual plans for mak­ing cur­ricu­lum ma­te­ri­als avail­able to the stu­dents who are not at school phys­i­cal­ly. This will vary by school, sub­ject and teacher, based on the re­sources avail­able,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She con­tin­ued, “At the EC­CE, Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary Lev­els, on­line school is not a suit­able re­place­ment for phys­i­cal school—this is the rea­son that all coun­tries of the world, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, have been work­ing hard to get stu­dents back to school, safe­ly. Stu­dents be­ing away from phys­i­cal school con­tributes great­ly to learn­ing loss for a va­ri­ety of fac­tors.”

In Au­gust, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley hint­ed that a hard­line ap­proach may have to be tak­en against un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents.

He said if vac­ci­na­tion num­bers were still too low by mid-Sep­tem­ber for herd im­mu­ni­ty to be achieved among the 12 to 18 age group, then the Gov­ern­ment would act.

TTUTA feels dis­re­spect­ed

And hours af­ter the MOE an­nounced the phys­i­cal re­open­ing of schools for Forms Four to Six stu­dents on Oc­to­ber 4, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has lashed out, claim­ing dis­re­spect.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, TTUTA’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Kady Beck­les said in an­nounc­ing the re­quire­ments of this most re­cent pol­i­cy, the MOE, “has demon­strat­ed the sham that pass­es for con­sul­ta­tion with the Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Union, a lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for cor­rect pro­ce­dures, as well as a to­tal dis­re­gard for the well-be­ing of ed­u­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als.”

Point­ing out the im­por­tance of prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the MOE and any stake­hold­er in­clud­ing TTUTA, Beck­les said, “TTUTA, there­fore, holds the po­si­tion that a me­dia re­lease can­not be deemed a le­git­i­mate in­stru­ment or in­struc­tion to sec­ondary school prin­ci­pals to car­ry out the ac­tions out­lined above.”

TTUTA claimed, “It is ab­solute­ly dis­re­spect­ful to ed­u­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als whom the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion claims to hold in high re­gard.”

The teach­ers union has al­so raised con­cerns re­lat­ing to its sug­ges­tions that on­ly stu­dents of Forms 5 and 6, who were to work on prac­ti­cal com­po­nents of their dif­fer­ent sub­jects, should be re­turn­ing to school now.

Beck­les claimed, “The ap­proach pro­posed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will be a lo­gis­ti­cal night­mare for our ed­u­ca­tors to teach and man­age both up­per and low­er school stu­dents in the phys­i­cal and vir­tu­al con­texts.”

Beck­les said TTUTA had of­fered var­i­ous so­lu­tions which would al­low stu­dents to ben­e­fit from what is to be de­liv­ered this term and al­so re­duce the dis­rup­tion of the work-life bal­ance of ed­u­ca­tors.

TTUTA al­leged, “Sad­ly, it ap­pears that on­ly lip ser­vice is paid by the Min­is­ter to pre­serv­ing the wel­fare of ed­u­ca­tors and stu­dents.”