RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Full en­gage­ment of all stu­dents from 483 pri­ma­ry and 141 sec­ondary schools be­gan yes­ter­day, as teach­ers across the coun­try en­gaged in blend­ed learn­ing ses­sions.

But de­spite weeks of plan­ning for a smooth roll­out, Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lance Mot­t­ley said there were still hic­cups as some schools did not have the ba­sic ma­te­r­i­al for pa­per-based learn­ing.

To fa­cil­i­tate some 60,000 stu­dents across the coun­try who do not have ac­cess to elec­tron­ic de­vices for on­line class­es, the min­istry had or­gan­ised a drop off box sys­tem where par­ents could col­lect print­ed class­work week­ly. All com­plet­ed as­sign­ments were to be dropped back to the school for cor­rec­tion by teach­ers un­der this sys­tem. 

But Mot­t­ley said yes­ter­day that this can­not be done as some schools do not have func­tion­al pho­to­copy­ing ma­chines, oth­ers had no print­ers or pho­to­copy­ing ma­chines, while some schools had no print­ing pa­per, ton­er or ink.

“The min­istry would need to fur­nish the schools with pho­to­copiers, send tech­ni­cians to ad­dress the con­cerns for copiers that are not work­ing and al­so sup­ply pa­per and ton­er to have the copiers work­ing,” Mot­t­ley said.

He ex­plained that some 70 per cent of schools start­ed class­es last week and ex­cept for the lack of ma­te­ri­als, the roll­out went smooth­ly.

“How­ev­er, there con­tin­ue to be se­ri­ous chal­lenges about the cost of print­ing ma­te­r­i­al and we be­lieve the min­istry can help as­sist in that re­gard,” Mot­t­ley said.

He al­so called on cor­po­rate T&T to adopt a school in a com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing it was im­por­tant for all stu­dents to have ac­cess to on­line class­es.

“We know the pri­vate sec­tor is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the same kind of chal­lenges but there is still room for more help,” he added.

Mean­while, a source at the Cun­jal Road Gov­ern­ment School con­firmed that their pho­to­copy­ing ma­chine was down. As such, par­ents were asked to down­load the school­work via What­sapp and print it be­fore drop­ping it back at the school.

How­ev­er, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Vi­jay Ma­haraj said the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry had sent out a mem­o­ran­dum re­cent­ly ask­ing all prin­ci­pals to iden­ti­fy chal­lenges as it re­lates to pa­per-based or on­line learn­ing.

He said 50 per cent of stu­dents in all SDMS schools were us­ing elec­tron­ic de­vices.

“It is about to in­crease to 70 per cent. We are al­so do­ing the work­sheets. Pho­to­copy­ing is tak­ing place and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion sent out a mem­o­ran­dum about the short­age which they might be en­coun­ter­ing,” Ma­haraj said.

“At this point, we don’t have any short­age of prints, pho­to­copy­ing ma­chines, ton­ers in Ma­ha Sab­ha pri­ma­ry schools, but if we con­tin­ue at the rate we are go­ing, the chances are we are go­ing to run short on all three. In the case of the pho­to­copy­ing ma­chines, they do break down and they will break down at some stage.”

Ma­haraj said there has been no cor­po­rate spon­sor adopt­ing any of his schools.

“Oth­er than Re­pub­lic Bank, which sup­ports Balvikas, we have had no cor­po­rate spon­sor. We ap­proached cor­po­rate T&T in the past and we nev­er re­ceived any as­sis­tance, so we try to be a self-suf­fi­cient as a board. DHL from abroad gave us 20 used com­put­ers and we were able to get that be­cause of per­son­al con­tact,” he said.

Yes­ter­day, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas, in a mes­sage to teach­ers, said she was heart­ened that con­tin­u­ous di­a­logue will be on­go­ing with the min­istry to dis­cuss prob­lems.

“We’re not sat­is­fied that the train­ing giv­en to ed­u­ca­tors was enough to de­liv­er the cur­ricu­lum and pro­vide psy­choso­cial sup­port. The lev­el of sup­port re­quired by ed­u­ca­tors must be based on the sup­port need­ed,” she said.

She al­so not­ed that teach­ers must not use their per­son­al de­vices to ex­e­cute class­es, say­ing the State must pro­vide all the nec­es­sary re­sources. She al­so said there must be non-con­tact time for work prepa­ra­tion, adding that teach­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors must plan and de­liv­er the cur­ricu­lum with­in work­ing hours. 

In an in­ter­view, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly agreed that the min­istry should off­set the cost of the pack­ages.

“Sup­plies have been sourced for pri­ma­ry schools, pay­ments and de­liv­er­ies should be made this week. This will as­sist those that need these crit­i­cal sup­plies to con­tin­ue to pro­vide the pack­ages.  

The pri­vate sec­tor sup­port for Adopt A School has been very en­cour­ag­ing,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She added, “We look for­ward to sup­plies be­com­ing avail­able this week and de­liv­ered to schools. That has been the bot­tle­neck.”

She al­so not­ed that ser­vice providers have col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) to pro­vide 10,000 con­nec­tiv­i­ty de­vices for stu­dents, which have al­ready been or­dered.