Some school chil­dren in the south­west­ern penin­su­la are find­ing it dif­fi­cult to get trans­porta­tion to reach their re­spec­tive venues for ex­ams. With the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions less than a week away, par­ents want the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to make spe­cial pro­vi­sions to trans­port the af­fect­ed pupils.

One par­ent, Pat­sy Sieud­han said she was wor­ried sick about her daugh­ter's up­com­ing ex­ams.

"I am try­ing to get trans­port for her but the dri­ver is charg­ing us $40 a day to take her to school. Be­cause of COVID, the taxis are not work­ing here. Those that work do so in Point Fortin so they leave here at 7 am to go to Point," Sieud­han.

"I want the min­istry to help us. It's dif­fi­cult for us. I sell fig and zabo­ca from my gar­den right now so I am hop­ing that I will sell enough so that I will have mon­ey to hire the car to take her to school," she said.

Say­ing she was ex­pect­ing great things from her daugh­ter who at­tends a school in Ce­dros, Sieud­han added, "She is an out­stand­ing stu­dent. She stud­ies a lot and she is ex­cit­ed about ex­ams. She is 16 years old and I do not want her to miss her ex­ams,"

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said Sieud­han's plight was be­ing faced by many oth­er par­ents.

He said trans­porta­tion has been a prob­lem pre­vi­ous­ly but it was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by COVID-19. "All trans­porta­tion ser­vices are sus­pend­ed be­cause of COVID. Some maxi dri­vers have not been paid and based on what is hap­pen­ing, they too are strug­gling but some are will­ing to make spe­cial arrange­ments," he said.

He not­ed that many chil­dren have not been able to ac­cess on­line school­ing be­cause their par­ents were un­able to pay their in­ter­net and elec­tric­i­ty bills.

"We are hav­ing an over­whelm­ing re­sponse from our Help T&T Home­work Cen­tre which was set up at Mc Don­ald Trace and South­ern Main Road, Ce­dros, to help stu­dents with print­ing pack­ages and keep­ing abreast of their school­work," he said.

Since the term start­ed, Teelucks­ingh said records have shown that print­ing and oth­er re­sources were ex­tend­ed over 20,000 times to as­sist pupils and teach­ers with print­ing ma­te­r­i­al.

Com­put­ers have al­so been made avail­able for chil­dren to do re­search.

"Stu­dents from Pa­lo Seco, Erin, Ce­dros, Ica­cos and Point Fortin ac­cess the ser­vice. It is free and teach­ers come to print test sheets, pack­ages and oth­er items, he added.

On Fri­day Teelucks­ingh dis­trib­uted 120 pack­ages of sta­tionery for pupils who will write SEA on Ju­ly 1.

The stu­dents are from var­i­ous schools in­clud­ing Granville RC, Coro­man­del An­gli­can, Ce­dros Gov­ern­ment, Ce­dros An­gli­can, Lochmaben RC and Ica­cos Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter: This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for com­mu­ni­ty-based sup­port

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said if the min­istry em­barks on such an ini­tia­tive, it would in­volve the en­tire coun­try, not iso­lat­ed ge­o­graph­ic ar­eas, as the of­fer to as­sist with trans­port would have to be made equal­ly.

"In my ex­pe­ri­ence as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, though, I have seen fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ty groups, busi­ness­es, NGOs, even church­es from time to time come to­geth­er, some­times based on ad­vo­ca­cy, to help af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers," she said.

The min­is­ter could not say whether this has been ex­plored in these cas­es.

"But it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for that type of com­mu­ni­ty-based sup­port. I cer­tain­ly am look­ing in­to my con­stituen­cy and will pro­vide sup­port where nec­es­sary," she added.