Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion An­tho­ny Gar­cia yes­ter­day an­nounced that the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) will take place on Au­gust 20. Fur­ther­more, Stan­dard Five teach­ers who will be called out to pre­pare the stu­dents for this ac­tiv­i­ty, start­ing from Ju­ly 20, will be paid stipends to the tune of some $20.2 mil­lion - which will ef­fec­tive­ly be a va­ca­tion bonus of sorts.

On­ly three or four in­di­vid­u­als will be al­lowed in a class­room for this year's sit­tings of the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE) and the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) due to COVID-19 re­stric­tions.
At yes­ter­day's Min­istry of Health COVID-19 up­date, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said this was one of the pro­to­cols they were look­ing at im­ple­ment­ing as the min­istry con­tin­ues to work with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pre­vent any spread of the virus dur­ing ex­am­i­na­tions, which are sched­uled to be­gin on Ju­ly 13.

KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
While sci­en­tists project 12-18 months be­fore they can de­liv­er a COVID-19 vac­cine to the world, there re­mains un­cer­tain­ty over its ef­fec­tive­ness and when it will reach T&T.
At yes­ter­day's Min­istry of Health COVID-19 up­date, Dr Chris­tine Car­ring­ton, Pro­fes­sor of Mol­e­c­u­lar Ge­net­ics and Vi­rol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, said the avail­abil­i­ty of a vac­cine in T&T would de­pend on the pro­duc­tion rates and quan­ti­ties.

All of the 29 cruise ship work­ers from the Car­ni­val Fan­ta­sy Cruise Ship have test­ed neg­a­tive for the COVID-19 ac­cord­ing to one of the cruise ship work­ers who spoke to the Sun­day Guardian anony­mous­ly.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused a sit­ting MP of “tout­ing” to find T&T na­tion­als who re­main strand­ed abroad and bas­ing as­sur­ances of re-en­try on the premise that their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are be­ing vi­o­lat­ed by the State.

Hair­dressers, bar­bers, beau­ty tech­ni­cians, gar­den­ers, do­mes­tic work­ers and spas have been grant­ed per­mis­sion to re­sume op­er­a­tions from Mon­day. With more seg­ments of the econ­o­my open­ing up as Phase Four of the process takes ef­fect, pub­lic trans­port op­er­a­tors have been told they can in­crease pas­sen­ger ca­pac­i­ty to 75 per cent from Mon­day.

The con­tin­u­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has cost na­tion­al Taro­mi Lour­des Joseph a chance to make a more mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion at the 2020 Di­ver­si­ty in Cannes Fes­ti­val.

ANSA Mer­chant Bank re­cent­ly recog­nised the ef­forts of all Pe­tro­le­um man­age­ment teams and state en­ter­pris­es teams with­in the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries by de­liv­er­ing a batch of hand sani­tis­ers to min­istry rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young says that the Gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly field­ing "thou­sands" of re­quests from peo­ple want­i­ng bor­der ex­emp­tions.

Dis­ap­point­ment, frus­tra­tion, and fear are the emo­tions be­ing felt by the 109-mem­ber group of T&T na­tion­als strand­ed in the US.

Des­per­ate to re­turn home fol­low­ing the death of his moth­er and the con­di­tion of his sev­en-month preg­nant wife, a T&T na­tion­al in Suri­name has made an ur­gent re­quest to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for an ex­emp­tion for en­try.

Gov­ern­ment is ex­plor­ing the idea of al­low­ing a lim­it­ed num­ber of over­seas work­ers re­turn­ing to T&T to pay for their own quar­an­tine costs un­der state su­per­vi­sion, says Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.