Dr. the Hon. Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and the Hon. Lisa Mor­ris- Ju­lian vis­it­ed schools in the North East, ex­press­ing ex­cite­ment for schools open­ing while re­mind­ing stu­dents to fol­low all safe­ty pro­to­cols and guide­lines. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion:

To­day marked day three of vis­its to schools by Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr. the Hon. Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and the Hon. Lisa Mor­ris- Ju­lian, along with of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion; with a fo­cus on schools in North East Trinidad.

The del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed eight schools, start­ing at San­gre Grande Sec­ondary School, then North East­ern Col­lege, SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege and Guaico Sec­ondary School. There­after, they vis­it­ed Va­len­cia Sec­ondary School, Brazil Sec­ondary School, and Mal­abar Sec­ondary School; end­ing at Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School.

School ad­min­is­tra­tors were able to pro­vide Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials with an overview of safe­ty pro­to­cols, at­ten­dance sched­ules and oth­er mat­ters of school op­er­a­tions.  Both Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ters took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with the stu­dents and re­as­sure them of the Min­istry’s sup­port and in­ter­est in their ed­u­ca­tion­al and phys­i­cal well­be­ing.

Un­der­stand­ing the ex­cite­ment of re­turn­ing to school, and for some, en­ter­ing their new school for the first time, Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly re­mind­ed the stu­dents of the need be care­ful, and to fol­low all safe­ty pro­to­cols. Em­pha­sis was placed on the fact that theirs is a per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to, “Wear your mask, wash your hands, watch your dis­tance and san­i­tize” as they en­gage with their peers and par­tic­i­pate in class ac­tiv­i­ties.

Both Min­is­ters spoke to the coun­try's grat­i­tude that our chil­dren are able to ar­rive at this mile­stone, ac­knowl­edg­ing the yeo­man ef­fort of teach­ers, par­ents and school ad­min­is­tra­tion. “We must fo­cus now on man­ag­ing our schools safe­ly, be­ing vig­i­lant to min­i­mize risk, and pro­vid­ing the best qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion pos­si­ble in this time of tran­si­tion. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­mains com­mit­ted to  the safe re­turn of all our chil­dren to phys­i­cal school at­ten­dance."

Based on the re­view of the da­ta for Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 9th, 2022, 66% of stu­dents were in at­ten­dance at sec­ondary schools.  The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the op­er­a­tions of all schools close­ly, and both Min­is­ters are sched­uled to vis­it schools week­ly, with a view to con­nect­ing with all Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary schools in Trinidad.