An­na-Lisa Paul

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.

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.”