Hours be­fore Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted that Trinidad and To­ba­go was in the midst of a third wave of COVID-19 in­fec­tions, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said the coun­try’s health sit­u­a­tion will be con­sid­ered as plans are dis­cussed for the re­open­ing of schools in Jan­u­ary 2022.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the mi­nor who passed away as a re­sult of COVID-19 on the week­end, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly yes­ter­day said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is sad­dened by the death of any child or fel­low cit­i­zen.”

The Min­istry of Health (MoH) yes­ter­day de­clined to re­veal the age of the child or any in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the case as they cit­ed pa­tient con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

How­ev­er, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Based on the in­for­ma­tion from the MoH, the child was not of the age for phys­i­cal school at­ten­dance.”

On­ly stu­dents in Forms Four to Six are cur­rent­ly be­ing al­lowed to at­tend class­es phys­i­cal­ly.

Asked if the mi­nor’s death could lead to a change in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s cur­rent pol­i­cy de­ci­sion on host­ing face-to-face class­es and how they would move ahead with plans for the start of the sec­ond aca­d­e­m­ic term in Jan­u­ary 2022, the Min­is­ter as­sured, “The health sit­u­a­tion will be a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion in the dis­cus­sion re: op­er­a­tion of all schools in Jan­u­ary 2022.”

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is sched­uled to meet with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and oth­er stake­hold­ers this week to dis­cuss their rec­om­men­da­tions for schools op­er­a­tions as Term II of the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2021/2022 will get un­der­way when schools open next year.