Over 1,700 of the 9,000 stu­dents el­i­gi­ble to take part in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme (VRP) turned out for the first day of class on Mon­day.

The pro­gramme is for stu­dents who sat the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion on March 31 and scored be­low 50 per cent in the ex­am.

While the re­views have been mixed, some stake­hold­ers have al­ready voiced con­cerns about the cost to par­ents, and the pos­si­ble stress­es the va­ca­tion class­es may add to chil­dren who al­ready faced a men­tal­ly ex­haust­ing two years of on­line school.

Young Samaya Rat­tan, who Guardian Me­dia spoke to out­side the Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary school where she at­tend­ed her first day, said the class was “good”.

“We learned com­pre­hen­sion and math,” Rat­tan said, as she added the day was fun.

David Ramkissoon was col­lect­ing chil­dren who at­tend­ed the ses­sion at Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary.

“It’s a very good thing for the gov­ern­ment to be do­ing right now,” he said. “This is a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for the chil­dren and them to make up the lessons.”

He said dur­ing the two years of on­line class­es teach­ing was in­con­sis­tent, and the chil­dren suf­fered be­cause they could not in­ter­act with their teach­ers in per­son, which he said is the rea­son so many of them fell be­hind. He felt the VRP could help these chil­dren in par­tic­u­lar close the ed­u­ca­tion­al gap.

How­ev­er, the ad­min­is­tra­tor of the SEA Par­ents Sup­port group, Rachiel Ram­samooj said the re­spons­es from par­ents in the group were mixed. Par­ents have said this Ju­ly/ Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od should have been kept as a well-de­served break for the stu­dents, and not an­oth­er study-filled ses­sion, es­pe­cial­ly as this is when they should be prepar­ing for the tran­si­tion from pri­ma­ry to sec­ondary school.

Oth­ers spoke about the high cost of trans­port­ing their chil­dren to and from their homes to the cen­tres. Ram­samooj de­tailed the con­cern, “there are not some cen­tres close to them, while their child would like to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­gramme, the cen­tre is so far that it would take them...one par­ent quot­ed $30 to and from, and that is if the child is trav­el­ling alone.”

We reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly to com­ment on the pro­gramme’s first day, and to re­spond to some par­ents’ con­cerns about trans­port, and the work­load.

She is­sued the fol­low­ing, “The VRP be­gan in 33 cen­tres to­day. A to­tal of 1,754 stu­dents and 155 teach­ers were record­ed as hav­ing been in at­ten­dance at the ses­sions.

“Break­fast and lunch were avail­able to the stu­dents through the ser­vices of the NS­D­SL (Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed).

“Par­ents are re­mind­ed that walk-in reg­is­tra­tion is be­ing ac­com­mo­dat­ed through­out this week, so they can still take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have their chil­dren at­tend the Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme.

“There will be ex­er­cis­es done to de­ter­mine the progress stu­dents are mak­ing through­out the 4 weeks of the pro­gramme in ac­cor­dance with the cur­ricu­lum that is be­ing of­fered.

“This cur­ricu­lum was de­signed based on the ar­eas of weak­ness iden­ti­fied by analy­sis of da­ta from SEA 2022.”