An­na-Lisa Paul

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is still hop­ing for a post­pone­ment of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on Ju­ly 1 be­cause of high COVID-19 fig­ures.

In an at­tempt to re­as­sure teach­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those who are yet to re­ceive their sec­ond dos­es of the COVID-19 vac­cine, TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas has chal­lenged Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram to come out and say if it is safe and ac­cept­able for this co­hort of peo­ple to be out and about in pub­lic.

“Hav­ing per­sons vac­ci­nat­ed with the first dose and go­ing out to su­per­vise is a con­cern in terms of their lev­el of im­mu­ni­ty, and if there are chil­dren who are asymp­to­matic and com­ing in…it is a ma­jor health and safe­ty con­cern,” she said yes­ter­day.

Re­fer­ring to sta­tis­tics from June to mid-Au­gust 2020 when the last SEA ex­am was held, Tekah-De Fre­itas point­ed out, “The num­ber of ac­tive cas­es in T&T was just un­der 700 then, but at that time, Cab­i­net took a de­ci­sion in the in­ter­est of the stu­dents to post­pone the ex­am un­til Au­gust.

“Now this year, it is al­most 11 times that at 7,800 ac­tive cas­es as at yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) and you are go­ing ahead with the ex­am­i­na­tion.”

She said the an­nounce­ment by ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials on Tues­day that pre-en­try screen­ing pro­to­cols were in place had been a shock for all school prin­ci­pals.

“Who is go­ing to do the screen­ing? That has not been clear­ly out­lined. Is it the testers or the school ad­min­is­tra­tors that are ex­pect­ed to do this screen­ing? What plans are in place in case the weath­er changes while the screen­ing is tak­ing place, since some schools do not have shel­tered ar­eas at their en­try points?

“Our po­si­tion is that if the ex­am has to go on and the min­istry in­sists on it, that is their pre­rog­a­tive. At the end of the day, we are still con­cerned about the health and safe­ty and well-be­ing of our ed­u­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als and the stu­dents who have been at home for the past two years.”

She added, “You are now telling them to come to an ex­am with a mask on and sit for long pe­ri­ods of time. There are chil­dren who have been grant­ed con­ces­sions be­cause of med­ical is­sues.”

Re­in­forc­ing TTUTA’s call for a post­pone­ment, Tekah-De Fre­itas said, “We be­lieve the CMO and the Min­istry of Health should have been mak­ing a pub­lic pro­nounce­ment on the state of pub­lic health safe­ty and that it would be safe for stu­dents and ed­u­ca­tors to go out for the SEA.

“We have not heard that and there­fore we are not con­vinced that it is prop­er­ly safe for per­sons to be out at this point in time for any ex­am­i­na­tion. We would re­al­ly be heart­ened if the CMO would come out and say now is a safe time for per­sons to be do­ing ex­am­i­na­tions, ad­min­is­ter­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in ex­am­i­na­tions.”

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent Car­lene Hayes said like TTUTA, they too had not been in­formed of the pre-en­try screen­ing pro­to­cols, as there seemed to be a “com­mu­ni­ca­tion glitch.”

She ap­pealed to par­ents and guardians to, “lim­it the ex­po­sure of their chil­dren in this com­ing week to en­sure they do not con­tract the COVID-19 virus.”

Hayes ad­vised, “If your child is sick on the morn­ing of the ex­am, was ex­posed to a COVID-pos­i­tive case, or if the en­tire fam­i­ly is sup­posed to be in quan­ran­tine… they should make the eth­i­cal de­ci­sion to not send their child to school on the day of the ex­am.”

Hayes said a make-up ex­am will be ad­min­is­tered on Ju­ly 21 for those who miss the Ju­ly 1 ex­am.

“We do not want a sit­u­a­tion of a child com­ing and in­fect­ing their class­mates and ex­am­in­ers.”