RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has shut down an ap­peal from book­sellers to be al­lowed to op­er­ate dur­ing the lat­est COVID-19 lock­down.

Re­spond­ing to calls from the book­sellers that stu­dents will suf­fer with­out ac­cess to sta­tion­ary and past pa­pers, Gads­by-Dol­ly said if the COVID spike is not re­duced sig­nif­i­cant­ly, stu­dents will suf­fer even more.

“Very quick­ly, we will face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in ad­min­is­ter­ing the very ex­am­i­na­tions for which stu­dents are prepar­ing. At this time, the em­pha­sis must be placed on get­ting those num­bers down so that the ex­am­i­na­tions can pro­ceed, and all busi­ness­es can con­tin­ue to op­er­ate,” she said.

She added, “The op­por­tu­ni­ty for com­ple­tion of prac­ti­cals at sec­ondary schools has been pre­served in the face of many oth­er re­stric­tions; most stu­dents are at the tail end of this process.”

How­ev­er, if sup­plies run low, Gads­by-Dol­ly promised that the min­istry will as­sist.

“If spe­cif­ic schools need crit­i­cal ma­te­ri­als, they can es­ca­late that to the min­istry and all ef­forts will be made to ac­com­mo­date them.  How­ev­er, at this time, we urge all to heed the re­stric­tions in place so that the abil­i­ty to host these crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tions is not com­pro­mised,” she urged.

She added, “ The quick­er we com­ply and get our num­bers down is the quick­er we can re­turn to a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy for all, and give our stu­dents the best chance for suc­cess.”

On Tues­day, the pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Ki­ran Singh added his voice to the grow­ing calls for book­stores to re­main open dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down.

“We agree with the call that all book­stores should re­main open. School chil­dren still have to go to school. The term has just start­ed. The SEA ex­am is com­ing up in a month. We have stu­dents writ­ing CAPE and CSEC and they will need to get sup­plies,” he said.

He added, “ I be­lieve that book stores have to re­main open for the sake of the chil­dren so they can get sta­tionery sup­plies and text­books to con­tin­ue study­ing dur­ing this pan­dem­ic.”

Mean­while, for­mer li­brar­i­an at the San Fer­nan­do Carnegie Free Li­brary Reynold Bas­sant, who now works at Mo­hammed’s Book­store and As­so­ciates, al­so told Guardian Me­dia that book­stores should stay open.

With a high lev­el of stress caused by the pan­dem­ic, Bas­sant said peo­ple need­ed books, adding that with on­line school, it was im­por­tant for book­stores to stay open.

But Khalid Khan, a di­rec­tor at Kei­th Khan Books Etc, said while the shut­down had “up­set to a lot of book­stores, the Prime Min­is­ter did what was nec­es­sary to curb the ris­ing cas­es.”

“While we would have liked to re­main open we can­not keep putting our staff and fam­i­lies at risk. It will be hard but we have to re­main pos­i­tive dur­ing this lock­down pe­ri­od. We urge par­ents to work close­ly with their chil­dren and pro­vide as much sup­port dur­ing this time as it is a very cru­cial pe­ri­od for all stu­dents both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary. It has tak­en a great toll on stu­dents and par­ents just have to con­tin­u­ous­ly be un­der­stand­ing and sup­port­ive,” Khan said.

Nass­er Khan, the own­er of Next Gen­er­a­tion Book­store in Rio Claro said he has been get­ting many calls from wor­ried par­ents since the shut­down was an­nounced. Both he and the own­er of Mo­hammed’s Book­store and As­so­ciates said book­sellers should be re­gard­ed as an es­sen­tial ser­vice.