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Saturday, March 15, 2025

NPTA told vaccinated students bully unvaccinated as schools resume

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
1236 days ago
20211025
Education Minister Dr Nyan Gasby-Dolly speaks to students in a class at the ASJA Girls’ College in Chaguanas yesterday. Accompanying her is Minister in the Ministry, Lisa Morris-Julian.

Education Minister Dr Nyan Gasby-Dolly speaks to students in a class at the ASJA Girls’ College in Chaguanas yesterday. Accompanying her is Minister in the Ministry, Lisa Morris-Julian.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

As thou­sands of sec­ondary school stu­dents in Forms Four to Six re­turned to the phys­i­cal class­rooms yes­ter­day, trou­bling re­ports have sur­faced from some par­ents, who re­vealed that vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents were bul­ly­ing un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents as the two groups met face-to-face.

In­ter­im chair­man of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Zena Ra­matali de­scribed this as an alarm­ing de­vel­op­ment no one had an­tic­i­pat­ed.

“There were cas­es be­fore of cy­ber-bul­ly­ing when they were on­line and now, the vac­ci­nat­ed are hav­ing is­sues with the un­vac­ci­nat­ed,” Ra­matali said.

She called for greater em­pha­sis to be placed on ed­u­cat­ing stu­dents to avoid any fur­ther es­ca­la­tion.

Ra­matali added, “We have to teach our chil­dren how to be our broth­er’s keep­er be­cause this is a pan­dem­ic and both sets of stu­dents are out.”

Apart from this, she said, “Gen­er­al­ly, things went well.”

Ra­matali re­mind­ed stu­dents to al­ways re­mem­ber to keep their masks on, sani­tise and avoid min­gling – es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the lunch and re­cess pe­ri­ods and be­fore and af­ter school, as some stu­dents were seen to be do­ing yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter tours schools

Dur­ing a vis­it to four schools in the cen­tral dis­trict yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly urged stu­dents to avoid touch­ing and hug­ging in or­der to avoid an­oth­er lock­down.

Tour­ing the Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary School; Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary School and the AS­JA Boys’ and Girls’ Col­leges, Gads­by-Dol­ly, along with Min­is­ter in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, un­der­scored the im­por­tance of safe­ty mea­sures such as the so­cial­ly-dis­tanced arrange­ment of class­rooms, mask­ing of all school per­son­nel and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of en­try pro­to­cols which in­clud­ed ther­mal scan­ning and hand wash­ing.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said some schools had en­gaged in ro­ta­tion­al sched­ules to en­sure that so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols are main­tained.

A break­down from the min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that 16,688 stu­dents were ros­tered to at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly yes­ter­day, with 9,907 or 59.3 per cent re­port­ing to school.

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 11-15, the min­istry said a dai­ly av­er­age of 5,654 stu­dents were ros­tered for phys­i­cal school at­ten­dance, with the av­er­age dai­ly at­ten­dance stand­ing at 3,822 stu­dents.

At de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools yes­ter­day, 3,459 stu­dents were present phys­i­cal­ly, com­pared to the dai­ly av­er­age of 2,061 dur­ing Oc­to­ber 11-15.

At the gov­ern­ment schools, 6,448 stu­dents were present on Oc­to­ber 25, com­pared to the dai­ly av­er­age of 1,760 dur­ing Oc­to­ber 11-15.

APPSS: Pos­i­tive feed­back

Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Prin­ci­pals of Pub­lic Sec­ondary School (APPSS), Sher­ra Car­ring­ton-James, said, “The feed­back gen­er­al­ly is that the turnout was a lot more pos­i­tive than we would have ex­pect­ed…the turnout could have been be­tween 70 to 75 per cent at­ten­dance gen­er­al­ly across our schools, which is good.”

She said she had not heard of any in­ci­dents or ac­ci­dents yes­ter­day, but called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) to en­sure funds are dis­bursed in a time­ly man­ner to schools so that sani­tis­ing works can be done as they should.

“We had some sup­plies which came through our dis­trict of­fices in very mea­sured quan­ti­ties, so we don’t see that be­ing sus­tain­able and we’d much pre­fer that al­lo­ca­tion be giv­en in a time­ly man­ner,” Car­ring­ton-James said.

Students of St Joseph’s Convent on Harris Promenade in San Fernando wave before entering a classroom on the first day of the return of all students in forms Four to Six yesterday.

Students of St Joseph’s Convent on Harris Promenade in San Fernando wave before entering a classroom on the first day of the return of all students in forms Four to Six yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

SDMS re­ports al­most full ca­pac­i­ty

Act­ing gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), Vi­jay Ma­haraj, said while their schools in Pe­nal were af­fect­ed by flood­wa­ters, the five sec­ondary schools spread across the coun­try re­sumed op­er­a­tions at al­most full ca­pac­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he re­port­ed, “Chil­dren, at break time, want­ed to con­gre­gate and the teach­ers and jan­i­to­r­i­al staff were hav­ing a lit­tle bit of dif­fi­cul­ty to keep them apart.”

He ad­mit­ted stu­dents just re­al­ly want­ed “to talk, chat and catch up” with each oth­er af­ter be­ing away from each oth­er phys­i­cal­ly for more than a year.

At Vish­nu Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, Ca­roni, Ma­haraj said be­tween 84 and 88 per cent of stu­dents in Forms Four to Six turned up for class­es.

And at Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, St Au­gus­tine, there was al­most 100 per cent stu­dent at­ten­dance in Form Six; while at­ten­dance lev­els in Form Four and Five were es­ti­mat­ed to be up­wards of 90 per cent.

Catholic Board says most­ly nor­mal turnout

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board, Sharon Man­groo, pro­vid­ed an analy­sis from their schools which re­vealed that op­er­a­tions had re­sumed as nor­mal in most places.

At Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Cha­gau­nas, on­ly Up­per Six stu­dents at­tend­ed school yes­ter­day, while at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, the first half of Forms Four and Five at­tend­ed school, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of stu­dents to 100.

At the Matelot Com­mu­ni­ty School, on­ly three out of 10 Form Four stu­dents at­tend­ed school.

At St Joseph’s Col­lege, 91 stu­dents turned up, com­pris­ing 13 out of 26 Form Four stu­dents; and 78 out of 109 Form Five stu­dents.

At St Fran­cis Boys’ Col­lege, Bel­mont, of­fi­cials said 66 out of 77 Form Four stu­dents at­tend­ed school, while 60 out of 72 Form Five stu­dents were present.

Com­ment­ing on the re­sump­tion, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas said, “We are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and we are get­ting feed­back from our mem­bers, and we will is­sue in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia in due course. That is all I am at lib­er­ty to say right now.”


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