Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, re­ceived a warm south-east­ern wel­come from stu­dents and teach­ers at the Guayagua­yare Sec­ondary School, the first stop on a six­teen-school tour, to see mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed at the school to wel­come stu­dents back to in per­son teach­ing. 

The Min­is­ter and her team were met by the school’s Prin­ci­pal, Gre­go­ry Charles, and School Su­per­vi­sor III, Soren Bi­ji­ram, to­day, Tues­day 15 Feb­ru­ary 2022, the fourth day of the Min­is­ter’s tour of schools through­out Trinidad. 

School vis­its are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue every Tues­day.  The goal is to vis­it all schools in Trinidad.

The team of Min­istry of­fi­cials—which in­clud­ed Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer, Lisa Hen­ry-David and Di­rec­tor of School Su­per­vi­sion, Naima Ho­sein, along with School Su­per­vi­sors—re­ceived up­dates from the prin­ci­pals of each school on lev­els of pre­pared­ness, ad­min­is­tra­tive and in­fra­struc­tur­al needs, lev­els of at­ten­dance, stu­dent re­sponse to the re­turn to phys­i­cal school and gen­er­al readi­ness. 

“All schools vis­it­ed have worked as­sid­u­ous­ly to pro­vide the re­quired safe­ty pro­to­cols which al­low stu­dents and teach­ers to re­turn to school safe­ly. Where fur­ther sup­port and in­ter­ven­tion is re­quired, the Min­istry’s tech­ni­cal team will pro­vide, in con­junc­tion with the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed,” a re­lease from the Min­istry re­port­ed.

The ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter thanked teach­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors, par­ents, and all stake­hold­ers for their ef­forts to get our stu­dents back to school.  At every school vis­it­ed, Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly en­gaged with stu­dents, learn­ing about their ex­pe­ri­ences on re­turn­ing to the phys­i­cal class­room with their teach­ers and friends. 

“While the re­turn to school opened the doors to make new friends and rekin­dle old friend­ships, it is al­so equal­ly im­por­tant that you fo­cus on get­ting the most val­ue from your ed­u­ca­tion. Work hard, and above all, stay safe so that we can keep our schools open," the ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter told the stu­dents she met with to­day.

The schools vis­it­ed to­day were:

1.         Guayagua­yare Sec­ondary School

2.         Guayagua­yare RC School, St. An­tho­ny Pri­ma­ry School

3.         Ma­yaro St. Thomas RC School

4.         Ma­yaro Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School

5.         Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School

6.         Mafek­ing Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School

7.         Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School

8.         Rio Claro West Sec­ondary School

9.         Rio Claro Hin­du SDMS

10.       Rio Claro Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School

11.       St. Therese RC School

12.       Poole Rosary RC School

13.       Lib­ertville TML Pri­ma­ry School

14.       Robert Vil­lage Hin­du School

15.       Table­land Sec­ondary

16.       North Trace Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School