RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

On­line school re­sumed yes­ter­day with very few hic­cups, ex­cept for mi­nor in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty is­sues in some ar­eas.

Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent-Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NCP­TA) pres­i­dent Clarence Men­doza told Guardian Me­dia that class­es in the Vic­to­ria re­gion went well, with on­line stu­dents reg­is­ter­ing on time.

“Al­so, teach­ers reg­is­tra­tion at some schools were up and run­ning since Thurs­day. With some do­ing pre­lim­i­nary meet and greet with their stu­dents,” he added.

In the South­east­ern and St Patrick re­gions, Men­doza said there were some chal­lenges with in­ter­net ac­cess and stu­dents kept get­ting bumped off.

“Some par­ents kept call­ing to com­plain and vent their frus­tra­tion,” Men­doza added.

In the Ca­roni re­gion, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools had a good start, but Men­doza said some par­ents from the Ed­in­burgh Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School con­tact­ed the Con­cerned Par­ents Move­ment T&T to com­plain that their chil­dren were be­ing kept back in Stan­dard 2 but were giv­en Stan­dard 3 book­lists. 

Maria Regina Grade School pupil Nathan Julien joins his online class from his Arima home yesterday.

“We do un­der­stand why some stu­dents were be­ing kept back. In 2019, the school was closed for ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en months, with pi­geon in­fes­ta­tion and chil­dren lost al­most a year of school. Par­ents would have asked the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion how would their chil­dren get the nec­es­sary make­up time but were not giv­en a di­rect an­swer at a meet­ing held in the school,” Men­doza re­vealed.

The CPMTT al­so called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pro­vide more sani­tis­ing ma­te­ri­als need­ed.

Be­fore the start of the term, the min­istry is­sued strict guide­lines about at­ten­dance, as well as stip­u­la­tions on the du­ra­tion of ses­sions. Be­cause of on­go­ing on­line teacher train­ing, most teach­ers in all the coun­ties were well equipped to han­dle the on­line ses­sions.

Mean­while, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, said the re­sults of the 2021 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­ams will be avail­able for col­lec­tion this Thurs­day. Par­ents can con­tact their re­spec­tive schools to arrange a time for col­lec­tion of re­sults.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed that the min­istry had not re­ceived any ad­verse re­ports re­gard­ing the vir­tu­al open­ing of schools yes­ter­day.

Freeport Hindu School Standard Three pupil Yadev Lakhansingh on his first day of the new school year at his Clarke Road, Penal home yesterday.

Shirley Bahadur

Standard one student Liam Ragbir logs In to virtual classes yesterday at home in Curepe as the new academic year 2021/2022 began.

Kerisha Pierre second-year student at Sacred Heart R.C. School join the online class at the home East Dry River, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE