Mi­grants liv­ing in south­west­ern Trinidad faced a slight set­back yes­ter­day when they were sent to an aban­doned build­ing to reg­is­ter their chil­dren to at­tend school for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s re­lease on the reg­is­tra­tion of mi­grant chil­dren said reg­is­tra­tion was to be held at the St Patrick Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Of­fice on Farah Street, San Fer­nan­do, but that build­ing has been con­demned and over­grown with vines for sev­er­al years.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ad­mit­ted the er­ror, say­ing reg­is­tra­tion took place at the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fice on Sut­ton Street, San Fer­nan­do, in­stead. She said a sign was placed di­rect­ing mi­grants to the cor­rect lo­ca­tion. 

But de­spite this set­back, few­er than a dozen mi­grant chil­dren reg­is­tered at the Vic­to­ria dis­trict of­fice by 4 pm on the first day of the process.

Some mi­grants ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend school. Nair­ilis Marin said the process to reg­is­ter her son, Gabriel Duque, went smooth­ly.

“I am hap­py he will be go­ing to a school in Mara­bel­la,” she said.

How­ev­er, the co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port Group, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, said while she was pleased to see trans­la­tors in the min­istry’s of­fices, there were some is­sues with mi­grants ob­tain­ing their doc­u­ments, es­pe­cial­ly trans­lat­ed birth cer­tifi­cates. 

She called on the min­istry to pro­vide on­go­ing train­ing to all teach­ing staff and aux­il­iary staff be­fore the start of the new term to en­sure the mi­grant chil­dren are wel­comed and in­te­grat­ed well.

“Psy­cho-so­cial sup­port needs to be beefed up as this is cru­cial for their adap­ta­tion and in­te­gra­tion. Al­so, trans­port has to be made avail­able to the chil­dren so they can reach school safe­ly,” Ram­nar­ine said.

In Port-of-Spain mi­grants trick­led in slow­ly at the dis­trict of­fice at Jern­ing­ham Av­enue to reg­is­ter their chil­dren.

One min­istry of­fi­cial, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said by mid­day ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13 par­ents had vis­it­ed the of­fice.

Many, the of­fi­cial said, had the re­quired doc­u­ments but not pho­to­copies which she said they as­sist­ed with.

The moth­er of a ten-year-old Yuli­et Saave­dra, said she was grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty but wor­ried about the com­mute from his Pe­tit Val­ley home to ei­ther a school in Mar­aval or Laven­tille.

“She had put a list of the schools she want­ed for her child but when she got there she was giv­en a list of the schools that were avail­able for the child ... the zon­ing is not fair,” the moth­er ex­plained via a trans­la­tor.

Saave­dra need­ed to re­turn with one doc­u­ment to com­plete the reg­is­tra­tion and trans­late the birth cer­tifi­cate that the Caribbean In­ter­pret­ing and Trans­la­tion Bu­reau is charg­ing $185 to do.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­tin Lum Kin said he was con­cerned about the in­te­gra­tion of Venezue­lan chil­dren in schools.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew Pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Lum Kin said while ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers pre­pare for the in­clu­sion of mi­grant chil­dren he was wor­ried about how they will be treat­ed by some.

Lum Kin said the cur­ricu­lum al­lows for dif­fer­ences in re­li­gion and race which he said his ed­u­ca­tors were mind­ful of but as a Chi­nese de­scen­dant, he knows all too well how it feels to be bul­lied for be­ing dif­fer­ent.

“My grand­par­ents came from Chi­na and I first hand would have ex­pe­ri­enced those sort of be­hav­iours against me,” he shared.

Around 200 mi­grant chil­dren will be at­tend­ing Ro­man Catholic run schools around the coun­try come Sep­tem­ber this year.