From Sep­tem­ber, 200 Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren whose par­ents legal­ly reg­is­tered in this coun­try in 2019 will fi­nal­ly get a chance to en­rol in pri­ma­ry school.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed yes­ter­day that 19 Ro­man Catholic schools have been ear­marked for mi­grant en­rol­ment.

At the open­ing of a steel­pan fa­cil­i­ty at the Rus­sell Lat­apy Sec­ondary School in Mor­vant, she an­nounced: “We have iden­ti­fied a group of stu­dents who are ready to tran­si­tion and so we are work­ing to get them in­to some schools un­der the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board.”

This was not the first time such an an­nounce­ment was made. Gads­by-Dol­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly said the way had been cleared for 100 mi­grant chil­dren to at­tend pri­ma­ry school from last Sep­tem­ber. How­ev­er, when the time came the mi­grant chil­dren were not al­lowed to en­ter pub­lic schools be­cause the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al still had to sort out is­sues with stu­dent per­mits.

Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said this time they have al­ready reached out to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to en­sure the pupils get the per­mits they need for en­rol­ment along with their im­mu­ni­sa­tion cards. 

“All ef­forts are apace to get them in,” she said. 

The min­is­ter said ac­cord­ing to the law the mi­grant pupils have to be placed in a school where T&T na­tion­als are not dis­ad­van­taged. She ad­mit­ted that most of the Ro­man Catholic schools are lo­cat­ed in cen­tral and south Trinidad where many mi­grants have set­tled. 

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Mar­tin Lumkin said the de­ci­sion was the right one and the union has no ob­jec­tions but is con­cerned about the al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources.

“We are still mind­ful of the im­pact that it can have on our ed­u­ca­tors and the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem,” he ex­plained.

Lumkin said he was hope­ful the move will ben­e­fit not on­ly mi­grant chil­dren but all of T&T with prop­er pro­ce­dures and sys­tems in place to help the schools evolve.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Wal­ter Stu­art shared a sim­i­lar view. He said he hoped a prop­er struc­ture would be in place for the in­te­gra­tion process and the schools would be ad­e­quate­ly equipped to re­ceive the stu­dents in Sep­tem­ber.

Stu­art be­lieves the in­te­gra­tion will pro­pel pri­ma­ry school teach­ers to en­cour­age their stu­dents to en­gage in con­ver­sa­tion­al Span­ish.

“One can­not over­look the fact that we are in close prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela and we can lever­age the in­clu­sion of these mi­grant Venezue­lan stu­dents in­to our sys­tem where teach­ers and stu­dents can be adept in Span­ish lan­guage and cul­ture,” he said.

The co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port group Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine is con­cerned about how teach­ers will con­tin­ue with their syl­labus while help­ing the mi­grant pupils catch up.

“I think it will be a chal­lenge and they have to al­so recog­nise that these chil­dren are al­so en­ti­tled to an ed­u­ca­tion and we kind of hope that they are wel­comed by peo­ple who tru­ly un­der­stand their ed­u­ca­tion­al needs,” she said.

Ram­nar­ine wel­comed the move but ad­mit­ted it was a bit late as many Venezue­lans had re­turned home be­cause their chil­dren did not have ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion.

“We still have a larg­er prob­lem of hun­dreds of chil­dren who still will not be able to ac­cess that kind of school­ing be­cause they are from un­doc­u­ment­ed par­ents,” she said.

Ram­nar­ine re­vealed that for those chil­dren they have part­nered with the Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund(UNICEF) to cre­ate child-friend­ly spaces.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer at the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment(CEBM) Sharon Man­groo said they start­ed work­ing on the in­te­gra­tion process be­fore the pan­dem­ic and iden­ti­fied schools. Those who were will­ing gave a list of re­sources they need­ed.

She said they have been work­ing with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and trained teach­ers in Con­tent Lan­guage Sit­u­at­ed Learn­ing and Translan­guag­ing.

“The first batch was close to 98,” she said, adding that the teach­ers have been work­ing to be ready for the mi­grant pupils.

The Caribbean Kids and Fam­i­lies Ther­a­py Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CK­FTO) trained the teach­ers on iden­ti­fy­ing spe­cial learn­ing needs.