KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Stu­dents writ­ing the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) will not have to wear masks in the ex­am­i­na­tion rooms but will be sub­ject­ed to oth­er health con­trols.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Rosham Paras­ram said dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing be­tween the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

So far, they have es­tab­lished some guide­lines, in­clud­ing al­lowances for on­ly a small num­ber of stu­dents per ex­am­i­na­tion area, tem­per­a­ture checks and sani­tis­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion ar­eas.

“I had a dis­cus­sion to­geth­er with my PS (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) and the PS from Ed­u­ca­tion about a week and a half ago re­gard­ing the wear­ing of masks dur­ing ex­am­i­na­tions. We agreed col­lec­tive­ly that the best ap­proach would be to cre­ate a large so­cial dis­tanc­ing be­tween those in­di­vid­u­als. They will use, maybe, just a small amount of peo­ple in one par­tic­u­lar space at any giv­en point in time.

“There will be no con­gre­ga­tion be­fore and af­ter ex­ams and we will sani­tise all the sur­faces. We are look­ing to do tem­per­a­ture mon­i­tor­ing as well. If they are ill, they will not be al­lowed to come in­to the space. With re­gards to even the par­ents, there will not be gath­er­ing out­side. We will ask that they drop their chil­dren off and re­turn for them at the end of the ex­am­i­na­tions. Those dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, but the wear­ing of masks will be negat­ed by so­cial dis­tanc­ing in that par­tic­u­lar in­stance,” Paras­ram said.