Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Just mo­ments be­fore they were due to write their CSEC and CAPE ex­ams, some stu­dents of Holy Faith Con­vent in Cou­va (HFCC) were barred from en­ter­ing the com­pound with their school book­bags and cell­phones by school of­fi­cials, who made good on their promise to main­tain a “No Phone, No Bag” pol­i­cy.

Even a child who was car­ry­ing a trans­par­ent bag, which the school of­fi­cials said would be the on­ly kind al­lowed, was turned away be­cause the bag was deemed to have had edges that were not trans­par­ent.

Dis­tressed stu­dents had to scam­per to call their par­ents to re­turn to the com­pound to pick up their be­long­ings be­fore they were al­lowed to re-en­ter the com­pound to sit their ex­ams. Oth­ers who could not con­tact their par­ents had to beg par­ents of class­mates in the same sit­u­a­tion to keep their be­long­ings safe so they could sit the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies ex­ams.

A par­ent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day’s sce­nario de­vel­oped de­spite an over two-hour vir­tu­al meet­ing be­tween par­ents and school of­fi­cials on Sun­day, af­ter par­ents com­plained about the cal­lous na­ture of the COVID pro­to­cols in place.

Par­ents must drop stu­dents at the front gate and stu­dents are not al­lowed to walk with bags or cell­phones. In­stead, they have been ad­vised to put items they need in clear plas­tic bags. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, af­ter be­ing screened just af­ter en­ter­ing the com­pound, there is no stag­ing area for stu­dents to wait safe­ly be­fore go­ing in­to ex­am rooms. Stu­dents who have more than one ex­am are al­so not be­ing al­lowed to leave the com­pound and re­turn lat­er.

“HFCC has de­cid­ed, un­like any oth­er school in Trinidad that we are aware of, that stu­dents can­not take bags with their per­son­al ef­fects and sta­tionery or phones on­to the com­pound. Par­ents have raised con­cerns about how their daugh­ters are ex­pect­ed to car­ry all the ma­te­r­i­al they need for ex­ams, plus snacks or food, wa­ter, san­i­tary items, sani­tis­er, toi­let pa­per, es­pe­cial­ly for stu­dents who have to trav­el,” the par­ent said.

“Stu­dents got wet dur­ing last week’s rainy weath­er walk­ing from the gate to the main build­ing and so we at least tried en­sure we could drop our chil­dren on­to the com­pound safe­ly but there was no com­pro­mise from school of­fi­cials.”

The par­ent said they be­lieve be­cause the school does not have lock­ers or an area for the stu­dents to store items be­fore go­ing in­to the ex­am room, they have im­ple­ment­ed the strict rule.

How­ev­er, the par­ent said they raised con­cerns about the safe­ty of stu­dents who have to trav­el to school for ex­ams with no cell phones to stay in con­tact with their par­ents while in tran­sit both ways.

A source said in­stead of cre­at­ing a space for the stu­dents to put their phones and oth­er be­long­ings, the school of­fi­cials in­sist­ed par­ents should “net­work” and get pri­vate trans­port al­though most par­ents could not af­ford this be­cause of job loss as­so­ci­at­ed with COVID-19. School of­fi­cials promised to re­im­burse par­ents who make the pri­vate trans­port arrange­ments.

Stu­dents were told they could go to the of­fice if they need­ed to get in touch with their par­ents.

“We par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly of stu­dents who have to trav­el, are deeply out­raged at this lack of em­pa­thy and care for our stu­dents. I do not think it needs to be ex­plained why stu­dents need bags and a phone on them. This is not about stu­dents want­i­ng to go in­to the ex­am with cell phones, this is about them hav­ing them be­fore and af­ter­wards for their safe­ty, es­pe­cial­ly those who have to trav­el giv­en the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion,” the source said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a dean at the school told Guardian Me­dia to be care­ful of what we write. She di­rect­ed ques­tions to prin­ci­pal, Sis­ter There­sa Vial­va, whose phone was off.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the par­ents’ com­plaints.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the School Su­per­vi­sor III vis­it­ed the school and toured the class­rooms and re­port­ed that all so­cial dis­tanc­ing seat­ing arrange­ments were in place.

“Stu­dents are al­lowed to bring lunch­es and wa­ter to­geth­er with sta­tion­ary and per­son­al san­i­tary items in­to the ex­am room,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

“No cell phones were al­lowed in the class­rooms in keep­ing with CXC ex­am pol­i­cy guide­lines. The prin­ci­pal al­so in­di­cat­ed that it is dif­fi­cult in man­ag­ing stu­dents’ cell phones and lunch ar­eas due to phys­i­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion and per­son­nel to su­per­vise. In cas­es of emer­gency, stu­dents were told they can use the school phone for call­ing their par­ents.”

She al­so said, “Stu­dents were al­lowed to stay on the school’s com­pound for the day if they had morn­ing and af­ter­noon ex­ams.”

She not­ed that all these ex­ams pro­to­cols were dis­cussed with par­ents of Forms Five and Six long be­fore ex­ams start­ed. The min­is­ter said the ma­jor­i­ty of stu­dents were com­ply­ing.

“A small mi­nor­i­ty did not and it was ad­dressed by the prin­ci­pal with the co­op­er­a­tion of the par­ents,” she added.

How­ev­er, the par­ent said it seemed the su­per­vi­sor did not prop­er­ly probe the sit­u­a­tion.

“Par­ents thought we could reach a com­pro­mise with school of­fi­cials but if there is a threat of your child not be­ing able to sit ex­ams, then it’s a choice of the less­er of two evils?”