RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More in­vig­i­la­tors and safe­ty of­fi­cers will be hired over the next month by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the up­com­ing Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am­i­na­tion and the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy (CAPE) ex­ams.

The CSEC ex­ams will be­gin on Ju­ly 13 and be­cause of COVID-19 pro­to­cols, stu­dents will be placed in many class­rooms through­out the school.

Dur­ing a tour of the San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary School on Wednes­day, Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia as­sured that fi­nances will be pro­vid­ed to hire ad­di­tion­al in­vig­i­la­tors. How­ev­er, he could not say how many more will be need­ed.

“Yes, we will def­i­nite­ly need more in­vig­i­la­tors. To­wards this end, we have ad­ver­tised pub­licly for peo­ple su­per­vis­ing the ex­ams to ap­ply and we are hop­ing to get pos­i­tive re­spons­es as soon as pos­si­ble.

He ex­plained that a sur­vey was be­ing done in every school to de­ter­mine how many class­es will be uti­lized and once that is done, the fi­nal num­ber will be cal­cu­lat­ed.

Gar­cia al­so said prop­er sig­nage will be plas­tered in all schools to ed­u­cate stu­dents about so­cial dis­tanc­ing once the new term re­opens in Sep­tem­ber.

“The school sys­tem is now dif­fer­ent and we must plan as prob­lems arise. We recog­nise that stu­dents’ nat­ur­al in­stinct will be for them to gath­er and em­brace each oth­er. The pri­ma­ry school stu­dents will want to hug, play and share meals. We are work­ing with our prin­ci­pals to en­sure that as far as pos­si­ble, our chil­dren are safe. While we are not re­strict­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, we will make sure that what­ev­er is done is safe. We can­not dis­count that its chil­dren we deal­ing with so we will en­sure that we teach them the prop­er things,” Gar­cia said.

He ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the safe­ty pro­to­cols put in place by the school prin­ci­pal Ronald Mootoo.

Mootoo told the me­dia that ten hand­wash­ing sinks will be in­stalled in the school, along with san­i­ti­za­tion sta­tions in the car park. He added that masks will be manda­to­ry for every­one al­though stu­dents will be al­lowed to take them off dur­ing the ex­ams.

The school was in need of a paint job while the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed build­ing had a rust­ed roof. Asked to give an up­date on the $800 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for the com­ple­tion of 24 pri­or­i­ty schools, Gar­cia de­clined to com­ment. He said, “As I nor­mal­ly do on oc­ca­sions like these, I stick to the rea­sons for this me­dia con­fer­ence. In terms of the re­build­ing of schools I will deal with that on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion,” Gar­cia said.

Told that com­ple­tion of these schools was in keep­ing with school readi­ness for Sep­tem­ber, Gar­cia said, “We have the EF­P­PD (Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Plan­ning and Pro­cure­ment Di­vi­sion) here and they will do an as­sess­ment on the phys­i­cal as­pects of the build­ing. I will deal with that on an­oth­er day.”

Mean­while, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry Kurt Mey­er said prin­ci­pals now had the op­tion of re­port­ing school is­sues on­line.

“A prin­ci­pal with any is­sue can file a re­port on­line and we will im­me­di­ate­ly as­sign an of­fi­cer to deal with it. If he wants to deal with the is­sue him­self he can go in and make an amend­ment to it,” Mey­er said.

Mean­while, chief ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer Lisa Hen­ry-David said the is­sues raised by for­eign lan­guage stu­dents have al­ready been de­cid­ed on by the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil.

“A de­ci­sion tak­en by CXC was that stu­dents do­ing French and Span­ish will have to do Pa­per Two as well and that is how it is. That is the de­ci­sion. CXC is hav­ing a we­bi­nar to­day and Ques­tions will be field­ed and these ques­tions will be ad­dressed but as it stands now, the de­ci­sion it’s that they will have top do Pa­per 2,” Hen­ry-David said.

Gar­cia said he will be con­tin­u­ing to tour schools across the coun­try to en­sure there is readi­ness for the CSEC and CAPE ex­ams with­in the com­ing weeks. ­