Loyse Vin­cent

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for To­ba­go East Ayana Web­ster-Roy said yes­ter­day that she raised a red-flag about the shar­ing of porno­graph­ic con­tent dur­ing an on­line class, to point to the need for vig­i­lance among par­ents.

A class at the Bish­op’s High School in To­ba­go was in­ter­rupt­ed on Tues­day when porno­graph­ic ma­te­r­i­al be­gan broad­cast­ing through on a stu­dent’s con­nec­tion.

Web­ster-Roy has two chil­dren at­tend­ing the school.

Yes­ter­day she said her so­cial me­dia post was to high­light the dis­ci­pli­nary prob­lems be­ing faced by teach­ers as per­sons spoke about sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences from oth­er schools and pri­vate lessons.

She said she felt it was her du­ty as a par­ent first then as the Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs to “call out par­ents on the is­sue.”

“It high­light­ed the fact that some par­ents were not be­ing vig­i­lant in the home in terms of what was hap­pen­ing with their chil­dren when the on­line class­es were oc­cur­ring.”

She said the ques­tion of stu­dent hon­esty and trust­wor­thi­ness with on­line class links was al­so be­ing high­light­ed.

“If a teacher gives a child a link for a spe­cif­ic per­son and pur­pose that child should keep the link pri­vate­ly and not share it be­cause it’s al­so in­dica­tive of lack of re­spect for au­thor­i­ty,” she said.

Web­ster-Roy who said she sup­ports and makes con­tri­bu­tions to the school de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a teach­ing mo­ment.

“We say that chil­dren have a right to an ed­u­ca­tion and even dur­ing this pan­dem­ic we still try our best to ed­u­cate them. Are we as par­ents com­mu­ni­cat­ing with them that with this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty comes with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty?”

She said chil­dren are al­so re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that they pro­vide a safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment for them­selves and class­mates and added that it’s not a teacher’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act as a par­ent to chil­dren.

“So we send our chil­dren to school on a reg­u­lar (ba­sis) for teach­ers to par­ent so dur­ing this time of lock­down we still ex­pect teach­ers to par­ent our chil­dren as well? It’s our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We can­not de­pend on the state to raise our chil­dren.”

She said par­ents should not blame teach­ers who sac­ri­fice a lot to ed­u­cate and dis­ci­pline chil­dren.

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TUT­TA) rep­re­sen­ta­tive for To­ba­go, Bradon Roberts de­scribed the in­ci­dent as un­for­tu­nate. He said the in­ci­dent is in­dica­tive of stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline in the class­room and in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the sys­tem as teach­ers were rushed to pro­vide on­line class­es.

“It is im­por­tant to have sys­tems in place, as there are sev­er­al teach­ers who are not in tune with the tech­nol­o­gy and at that lev­el where we can man­age the plat­form and ma­noeu­vre ef­fec­tive­ly and safe­ly.”

He said the in­ci­dent is one of many and when teach­ers hes­i­tat­ed to en­gage in on­line class­es they were high­ly crit­i­cized by mem­bers of the pub­lic. He called on par­ents to do their part in en­sur­ing every­one is safe.

“Par­ents and stu­dents need to have guide­lines as to how you man­age these ses­sions at home it is not that chil­dren would be left un­su­per­vised with their lap­top and tablet for a pe­ri­od of time where such things could be hap­pen­ing.”

And while teach­ers are charged with man­ag­ing the class­room, Roberts ad­vised that teach­ers re­frain from us­ing the on­line plat­forms if they are not con­fi­dent they are in full con­trol.

A press re­lease from the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy strong­ly con­demned the be­hav­iour of stu­dents who dis­rupt on­line class­rooms and al­so called on par­ents to “ex­er­cise their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and do all in their pow­er to min­imise op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to ac­cess un­de­sir­able web­sites.”

The re­lease went on to state that the School Su­per­vi­sion Unit, is ac­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing these mat­ters and Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Unit, and will pro­vide the ap­pro­pri­ate guid­ance and coun­selling to stu­dents who share in­ap­pro­pri­ate con­tent, as well as to stu­dents who were ex­posed.

The Di­vi­sion has al­so com­mis­sioned its own se­cured plat­form, which caters to SEA, CSEC and CAPE, and teach­ers will be trained in its use.

In the mean­time, prin­ci­pals and teach­ers are en­cour­aged to utilise the Learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem (LMS) of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.