Ten months af­ter schools closed their doors due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, stu­dents in Forms Four to Six will be al­lowed to re­turn to class­es from Feb­ru­ary 8.

Out­lin­ing the hy­brid sys­tem be­ing em­ployed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) as to how the phased re­open­ing will com­mence for this group of stu­dents, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­as­sured par­ents, stu­dents and teach­ers that strict health pro­to­cols have been put in place.

Dur­ing a na­tion­al ad­dress from the Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­ers, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, the min­is­ter said once the vi­ral case­load num­bers re­main low, this would al­low for Stan­dard Five stu­dents to re­turn to class­es at the start of Term Three on April 12.

In­di­cat­ing ex­ter­nal ex­ams for both sets of stu­dents were sched­uled for lat­er in the year and it was nec­es­sary to have these cat­e­gories of stu­dents com­plete In­ter­nal As­sess­ments (IA’s), School-Based As­sess­ments (SBA’s), and Lab Prac­ti­cals as part of their fi­nal grade, Gads­by-Dol­ly said T&T was in a “unique po­si­tion” when com­pared to the rest of the re­gion as some ter­ri­to­ries had al­ready al­lowed their stu­dents to re­turn to the class­room.

Hav­ing in­tro­duced on­line teach­ing and learn­ing since March last year, the min­is­ter said hopes to re­open schools us­ing a blend­ed for­mat at the start of the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2020/2021 were dashed as the COVID-19 fig­ures had not al­lowed for it.

Com­mend­ing cit­i­zens for their re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour yes­ter­day, the min­is­ter said, “At this time, our COVID-19 num­bers have not bal­looned to the point where we are not able to even con­tem­plate a phased re­open­ing.” She was un­able to say how soon all cat­e­gories of stu­dents would be al­lowed to re­turn to school.

The pro­posed struc­ture for sec­ondary school stu­dents will fea­ture a mix of on­line class­es and face-to-face class­room time for the com­ple­tion of ex­am process­es.

Gads­by-Dol­ly stressed, “Phys­i­cal teach­ing class­es are to be held where on­ly ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary.”

At the pri­ma­ry lev­el, sub­sti­tute teach­ers will be as­signed to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al su­per­vi­so­ry as­sis­tance to en­sure Stan­dard Five stu­dents ad­here to pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions to wear their face masks, sani­tise, so­cial dis­tance, and re­frain from shar­ing sta­tionery, snacks and drinks.

Among the pro­to­cols to be en­forced up­on en­try at schools will be the wash­ing of hands, tem­per­a­ture checks, and con­tact trac­ing da­ta col­lec­tion.

This will be ac­com­pa­nied by the ab­sence of whole-school as­sem­blies, stag­gered lunch hours and breaks, and eat­ing at one’s desk to avoid con­gre­ga­tion and min­imise in­ter­ac­tion.

The min­is­ter said each school was re­quired to out­fit a quar­an­tine room where any­one ex­hibit­ing flu-like symp­toms would be kept un­til health of­fi­cials ar­rive.

Fur­ther, a Dis­trict Health Unit has been es­tab­lished in each school­ing di­vi­sion which con­tains one doc­tor and 14 nurs­es which will be re­spon­si­ble for fa­cil­i­tat­ing and ex­pe­dit­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween schools and the Min­istry of Health in any even­tu­al­i­ty.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing there would be a lev­el of anx­i­ety among par­ents, stu­dents and teach­ers—Gads­by-Dol­ly said it was ex­pect­ed.

In­di­cat­ing she too was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the same lev­el of angst as her daugh­ter would be re­turn­ing to Form Five, the min­is­ter said it was all about re­spon­si­ble ac­tions.

Re­turn­ing stu­dents will once again ben­e­fit from the Na­tion­al School Feed­ing Pro­gramme and the Na­tion­al School Trans­port Pro­gramme.

Re­act­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day, the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) has wel­comed the an­nounce­ment by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) re­gard­ing the phased re­open­ing of schools.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent Lance Mot­t­ley said at the same time, it was un­der­stand­able there would anx­ious par­ents, stu­dents and teach­ers.

Mot­t­ley raised con­cerns re­lat­ing to the in­stal­la­tion of wash sinks in all schools as he said re­ports reach­ing NAPSPA in­di­cat­ed some in­sti­tu­tions re­mained with­out.

But he ap­plaud­ed the MOE for mov­ing to in­tro­duce sub­sti­tute teach­ers to help with en­sur­ing stu­dents ob­serve pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions to so­cial dis­tance whilst at school, he said, “This is in­deed a good move on the part of the MOE and will as­sist in mon­i­tor­ing stu­dents dur­ing the break and lunch pe­ri­ods.”

Mean­while, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NCP­TA), Shami­la Ra­heem said they, “we’re deeply con­cerned about the fact that pri­ma­ry schools would be re­opened in April.”

Claim­ing that was bare­ly two months in which to ready the stu­dents for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on June 10, she said, “A lot of stu­dents are not on­line. They have not had the op­por­tu­ni­ty for live in­ter­ac­tion with their teach­ers, so teach­ing has not been tak­ing place in a lot of schools.”

She ques­tioned if this was enough time for all stu­dents to be pre­pared.

Ra­heem said while some par­ents were hap­py about the phased re­open­ing, there were al­so oth­ers who were anx­ious and fear­ful about what it could mean for their chil­dren.

Asked if the NCP­TA was con­cerned about the men­tal health im­pact the lock­down had on stu­dents, par­ents and teach­ers, Ra­heem said, “It is quite frus­trat­ing for all in­volved in this on­line school­ing which is the new norm. Not every­body is equipped to han­dle the stress­es that come with it, so that is a ma­jor con­cern.”