Soyi­ni Grey

Not pens, not books, not even cal­cu­la­tors or geom­e­try sets are the most want­ed item for back to school shop­pers. Uni­forms are.

With all stu­dents from pri­ma­ry to sec­ondary school ex­pect­ed back in class on Tues­day, par­ents have to get their school uni­forms ready and that high de­mand is af­fect­ing sup­ply.

Yes­ter­day, uni­form su­per­vi­sor at Ish­mael M Khan and Sons book­sellers on Hen­ry Street in Port-of-Spain, Jen­nifer Rahim, said be­cause schools were closed, stores weren’t or­der­ing school clothes. And stocks are now low.

“What­ev­er we had in stock, we are try­ing to push out right now,” she said.

With low stocks, lim­it­ed sizes and va­ri­ety, many par­ents are find­ing they have to go from store to store to source all of the items on their chil­dren’s uni­form list.

One moth­er, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said she start­ed shop­ping for uni­forms in Jan­u­ary, with the par­tial re­turn to school for sec­ondary school stu­dents. From Jan­u­ary to now, she said she added to her child’s clos­et so that she could avoid the rush.

“I’m just buy­ing ex­tras now,” she ex­plained.

Quite a few par­ents spoke about hav­ing to buy new sizes for their chil­dren, since the clothes they wore when they were last in class can no longer fit them. Par­ents are find­ing them­selves buy­ing every­thing from top to bot­tom, which is what the moth­er of twins in St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC), Ab­by Gar­cia, said was the sit­u­a­tion she found her­self in. She had to buy an en­tire­ly new wardrobe for her boys to at­tend school in the new term, adding the an­nounce­ment that school would re-open on April 19 caught her by sur­prise. That was the com­mon trend de­tailed among par­ents and busi­ness ap­proached in the cap­i­tal yes­ter­day.

Some par­ents were ac­com­pa­nied by their chil­dren, most of whom were sim­ply thrilled to be able to see their friends in re­al life soon.

Six-year-old Ka­maya Wal­ters said she was ex­cit­ed to re­turn to St Cather­ine Girls’ An­gli­can School to, “play with them, share and be kind” to her friends for the first time in per­son in two years.

Jay­lon Ray­mond said he found his up­com­ing re­turn to class to be “un­ex­pect­ed.” Al­though he is ex­cit­ed to be back among his friends, he sim­ply did not think a re­turn to school was in the cards for him this year. How­ev­er, his young broth­er Shomari told us he is not at all hap­py about the news, adding he does not want to in­ter­act with peo­ple much. Their moth­er ex­plained that her sons have been pay­ing at­ten­tion to the news.

Store own­ers mean­while said sales were steady but noth­ing like pre­vi­ous years. They ex­pect sales to con­tin­ue for the next few weeks but at a sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced rate.