An­na-Lisa Paul

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) yes­ter­day met to dis­cuss a num­ber of is­sues re­lat­ing to the re­open­ing of schools on April 19.

Fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the two-hour long ses­sion, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and TTUTA first vice-pres­i­dent Mar­lon Seales said clar­i­ty had been achieved in sev­er­al ar­eas.

The top­ics dis­cussed in­clud­ed the pro­vi­sion of Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE) to schools; how learn­ing re­cov­ery will be ad­dressed when schools re­open; if the on­line modal­i­ty is to be used and so­cial dis­tanc­ing in the class­room.

Seales said, “As far as the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is con­cerned, there is no man­date to use the on­line modal­i­ty.”

He stressed, “Where there are prin­ci­pals who are in­sist­ing on this man­date, they are do­ing it on their own with­out any sup­port of the min­istry.”

Re­gard­ing the three-feet so­cial dis­tanc­ing re­quire­ment as pre­vi­ous­ly out­lined by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO), the TTUTA rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the min­istry has tak­en to ad­vis­ing per­sons to main­tain their “per­son­al space.”

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ac­knowl­edges that this is a con­cern for them al­so. They ac­knowl­edge that in some schools…pri­or to COVID, it would be vir­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble to have that per­son­al space but even with that, they still see the need to open back schools and there­fore, they will have to find an adap­tive re­sponse with those two com­pet­ing needs, so the need to open back schools ver­sus the need to keep our chil­dren and our mem­bers safe.”

Asked if a ro­ta­tion or hy­brid sys­tem has been com­plete­ly ruled out, Seales said, “Yes. Right now the plan is for the phys­i­cal re­open­ing of all schools, at all lev­els. No men­tion of ro­ta­tion in any form or fash­ion was dis­cussed or con­tem­plat­ed.”

Seales said con­cerns were raised about the san­i­ti­za­tion of iso­la­tion rooms at schools af­ter use by an in­fect­ed stu­dent or teacher, as he said some re­luc­tance had been dis­played to have per­sons go in to clean be­fore 42 hours had passed.

To this end, he said the min­istry as­sured it was in con­sul­ta­tion with the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS) to en­sure there are no is­sues over what is ex­pect­ed

Mean­while, the TTUTA’s To­ba­go Bradon Roberts ex­pressed con­cern that some schools on the is­land may not be ready for re­open­ing on April 20.

While all schools in Trinidad will re­open on April 19, schools in To­ba­go will re­open one day lat­er – due to the Taste of Buc­coo Fes­ti­val which is held every year on East­er Tues­day.

Roberts, who was al­so present dur­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing with the min­istry, said, “There are schools with sig­nif­i­cant is­sues.”

Fol­low­ing a vis­it to Scar­bor­ough RC Pri­ma­ry School this week, he re­port­ed, “In the In­fants’ toi­lets, there is wa­ter com­ing up from un­der the tiles so there is a leak which needs to be re­paired.

“Tiles are al­so rais­ing up in dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the school, and there is a leak in the roof where you can see mould on the walls in some of the class­rooms…so this school will not be ready to re­open if they don’t ful­ly treat with the is­sues.”

In ad­di­tion, he said the roof at Whim An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School was leak­ing.

In­di­cat­ing he was mov­ing from school to school dai­ly to con­duct site vis­its, Roberts said, “I am not see­ing work be­ing done.”

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