JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Online access to learning not so easy for some

by

Sascha Wilson
1904 days ago
20200415

For the last month since the clo­sure of schools due to the COVID-19 out­break, Princes Town moth­er Crys­tal Charles has been strug­gling to put meals on the ta­ble to feed her nine young chil­dren.

Six of the chil­dren usu­al­ly re­ceived meals through the school feed­ing pro­gramme. How­ev­er, with the an­nounce­ment by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia that e-learn­ing plat­forms have been rolled out for stu­dents, since schools are like­ly to re­main closed un­til Sep­tem­ber, Charles, 33, and her moth­er Di­anne De­o­raj, 50, are wor­ried about the chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion.

This is be­cause they do not have in­ter­net ser­vice nor do they own a tele­vi­sion, com­put­er or oth­er elec­tron­ic de­vices be­cause they can­not af­ford it. These con­cerns re­gard­ing their chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion were shared by sev­er­al oth­er par­ents who al­so have no ac­cess to in­ter­net ser­vice and/or elec­tron­ic de­vices yes­ter­day.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Charles’ Cedar Hill, Princes Town home, she was not there. De­o­raj said her daugh­ter was at the hos­pi­tal with her last child, aged six months, who was ward­ed with a fever. De­o­raj, who al­so lives in the apart­ment with her 61-year-old hus­band, was car­ing for her eight oth­er grand­chil­dren, ages 16, 15, 12, nine, sev­en, four-year-old twins and a six-month-old ba­by. De­o­raj was at a loss as to how to help the chil­dren with their ed­u­ca­tion.

“They (chil­dren) need help. They need school stuff, gro­cery stuff, they need a TV, they need a com­put­er, they need the in­ter­net to get the work done for school. They need their ed­u­ca­tion, which is very im­por­tant for them and I would like them to get their ed­u­ca­tion ...”

De­o­raj works part-time as a do­mes­tic work­er and her hus­band is a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer. But her daugh­ter doesn’t work. Her daugh­ter ap­plied for Food Card but she was un­suc­cess­ful.

Her el­dest child is a Form Three stu­dent and told Guardian Me­dia he was do­ing well in school, with his marks rang­ing be­tween 65 and 99 per cent. With ab­solute­ly no way to do his class­es on­line, he said he was is wor­ried about his ed­u­ca­tion.

“Now that I don’t have a com­put­er or a lap­top or any ac­cess to in­ter­net it hard to cope with it. I will be re­al­ly thank­ful if the gov­ern­ment can as­sist and help in a cer­tain way that I can ben­e­fit from it and my fam­i­ly...,” the boy, whose name is be­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly with­held to pos­si­ble pre­vent stig­ma­ti­sa­tion, said.

Un­em­ployed sin­gle par­ent Tri­cia Forbes mean­while has three chil­dren at­tend­ing school. Her el­dest son is due to sit the CSEC ex­ams, her 13-year-old daugh­ter is a SEA stu­dent and her oth­er son is a Form Four stu­dent.

“I heard when they spoke about it on the TV about chil­dren get­ting this work on the in­ter­net and I say my daugh­ter writ­ing SEA too and she will not be able to do what the chil­dren are do­ing, so they (oth­er stu­dents) will have more of an ad­van­tage over her,” Forbes told Guardian Me­dia.

“The three of them will not be able to do any work be­cause I don’t have no lap­top, I don’t have no in­ter­net here.” Send­ing a mes­sage to the ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials, Forbes said, “Try to en­sure all the chil­dren who don’t have ac­cess to these things they want to im­ple­ment now, that they can try and go a lit­tle fur­ther in mak­ing sure all chil­dren get it. Some par­ents can­not af­ford and are just try­ing to get food for their chil­dren.”

Ste Madeleine moth­er of sev­en Niki­tak Williams, who is al­so sev­en months’ preg­nant, is al­so wor­ried that her chil­dren will fall be­hind be­cause they have no ac­cess to the on­line lessons.

Williams, a fast food out­let work­er who lost her in­come af­ter all restau­rants were closed last week, has five chil­dren at­tend­ing school, one of whom is a SEA stu­dent.

“He (son) is feel­ing re­al dis­ap­point­ed. It look­ing like next year they will write Com­mon En­trance (SEA).”

Fac­ing a sim­i­lar predica­ment, Toradale res­i­dent Ar­i­ana Far­rell said she want­ed the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that her three chil­dren re­ceive the same ed­u­ca­tion as those who have ac­cess to the e-learn­ing pro­grammes. Not­ing that her 13-year-old son is al­so writ­ing SEA, she said she was wor­ried that when schools re­open and the ex­am is set he will not be pre­pared.

COVID-19


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored