The world’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is in cri­sis and as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic rages on with­out an end date in sight, there have been calls for the re­open­ing of schools as the evo­lu­tion of this life-threat­en­ing virus con­tin­ues to change dai­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to a UNICEF re­lease dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 17, of­fi­cials said over 77 mil­lion chil­dren world­wide had been away from school for 18 months—and had lost more than two tril­lion hours of in-per­son learn­ing due to coun­try-wide lock­downs re­sult­ing from COVID-19.

And as new vari­ants con­tin­ue to emerge, sti­fling hope that a new nor­mal can be achieved, UNICEF wrote, “This gen­er­a­tion of chil­dren and youth can­not af­ford any more dis­rup­tions to their ed­u­ca­tion which is why we’re call­ing on gov­ern­ments to #Re­open­Schools as soon as pos­si­ble and get ed­u­ca­tion back on track.”

Stu­dents re­turn to the class­room

The de­ci­sion by T&T’s Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) to fol­low first world coun­tries and al­low the re­sump­tion of face-to-face class­es for sec­ondary school stu­dents in Forms Four to Six on Oc­to­ber 4, was not done light­ly.

Nei­ther was the in­tent sig­nalled by both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly to have stu­dents in Forms One to Three join their peers in the class­room this past term.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Oc­to­ber 20, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Though we are forg­ing ahead to­wards nor­mal­cy, we must be mind­ful that we are still op­er­at­ing in a pan­dem­ic, and all de­ci­sions must be con­tex­tu­alised by this re­al­i­ty.”

It is to be not­ed here that on­ly vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents were brought back out in the first in­stance on Oc­to­ber 4.

The vac­ci­na­tion of mi­nors in T&T be­tween the ages of 12 to 18 years, be­gan in Au­gust.

Fol­low­ing a two week analy­sis of dai­ly at­ten­dance records from pub­lic and pri­vate sec­ondary schools which con­firmed low lev­els most­ly with­in the pub­lic school sys­tem­—the MoE or­dered the un­vac­ci­nat­ed co­hort of stu­dents in Forms Four to Six, to re­turn to the class­room from Oc­to­ber 25.

Guid­ed by the Min­istry of Health (MoH) as this coun­try is cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing its third wave of the virus, the MoE was un­able to move for­ward with the plan to bring low­er form stu­dents back out as more than one dozen schools re­port­ed COVID-19 out­breaks be­tween Oc­to­ber 4 and De­cem­ber 10.

These out­breaks led to more than 100 stu­dents, teach­ers and aux­il­iary staff hav­ing to be quar­an­tined af­ter they ei­ther test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus or was faced with po­ten­tial ex­po­sure.

On Oc­to­ber 8, a teacher at the Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus, re­sult­ing in an un­known num­ber of staff and stu­dents hav­ing to be quar­an­tined.

On Oc­to­ber 19, a sec­ond staff mem­ber at the Princes Town East Sec­ondary School test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus, which fol­lowed two weeks af­ter a col­league con­tract­ed the COVID-19 virus.

On Oc­to­ber 28, five cas­es were re­port­ed at Iere High School, lead­ing to over 60 per­sons hav­ing to be quar­an­tined.

On Oc­to­ber 29, a par­ent of a stu­dent at­tend­ing the Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary School, To­ba­go test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, lead­ing to the school hav­ing to tem­porar­i­ly close its doors.

On No­vem­ber 7, a teacher at the SAGHS test­ed pos­i­tive, lead­ing to nine stu­dents hav­ing to be quar­an­tined.

On No­vem­ber 10, of­fi­cials at SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege de­nied teach­ers had test­ed pos­i­tive and al­so re­fused to con­firm stu­dents had been ex­posed—al­though the vice prin­ci­pal said sev­er­al stu­dents had been quar­an­tined out of an abun­dance of cau­tion.

On No­vem­ber 11, a teacher at the Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary School test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus, and po­ten­tial­ly ex­posed over 30 pupils.

The glob­al cost of school clo­sures since the pan­dem­ic was de­clared in 2020—on stu­dents’ learn­ing, their health, and their well-be­ing has been dev­as­tat­ing and it is no less so in T&T.

UNICEF wrote, “The reper­cus­sions for every child, their fam­i­ly, their com­mu­ni­ty and their econ­o­my will be felt for years to come. Many chil­dren will nev­er catch up.”

The in­ter­na­tion­al body claimed, “At least 1 in 3 school­child­ren had no ac­cess to re­mote learn­ing dur­ing school clo­sures.”

Lack of de­vices

ham­per on­line learn­ing

While some stu­dents have been able to ac­cess re­mote learn­ing dur­ing school clo­sures, many of them have strug­gled due to a lack of sup­port.

UNICEF de­clared, “At least a third of the world’s school­child­ren had no ac­cess to re­mote learn­ing at all.”

This was a chal­lenge en­coun­tered in many coun­tries in­clud­ing T&T, where ap­prox­i­mate­ly 63,369 stu­dents were with­out de­vices at the start of the pan­dem­ic in Ju­ly 2020.

In April 2021, Gads­by-Dol­ly es­ti­mat­ed this num­ber had come down to 35,448­—which in­clud­ed a mix of both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents.

The smooth ad­min­is­tra­tion of on­line class­es was al­so dis­rupt­ed due to a lack of in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty, lead­ing the MoE to pur­chase over 10,000 Mi­Fi de­vices to be dis­trib­uted to schools and stu­dents. The first phase of dis­tri­b­u­tion of these de­vices be­gan in Sep­tem­ber 2021.

Phys­i­cal con­straints

force in­no­va­tion

Aware that a rec­om­mend­ed re­turn to the class­room for both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents would re­quire an in­no­v­a­tive and unique ap­proach as many of the schools in T&T are old and un­able to prop­er­ly ac­com­mo­date all stu­dents with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of so­cial dis­tanc­ing, the MoE pro­posed a hy­brid sys­tem in­clu­sive of two days of class­room teach­ing, with the re­main­ing days on­line.

In a 57-page draft guide­line doc­u­ment is­sued in Au­gust 2021 re­lat­ing to the re­open­ing of schools, the MoE rec­om­mend­ed that

Stan­dards Four and Five stu­dents in pri­ma­ry schools be al­lowed to re­turn to the class­room dur­ing aca­d­e­m­ic Term I which con­clud­ed on De­cem­ber 10.

They were in­tend­ed to func­tion si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in the low­er school, with the Forms Four to Six sec­ondary school stu­dents per­form­ing in the up­per school.

In March 2020, for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia said a tech­ni­cal team from the MOE had been man­dat­ed to ex­plore if and how phys­i­cal re­con­fig­u­ra­tions at schools could be done to ac­com­mo­date the safe re­turn of stu­dents—the find­ings of which were in­clud­ed in the draft doc­u­ment.

Neg­a­tive im­pact of schools clo­sure

The pro­longed clo­sure of schools has had an ad­verse im­pact on the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion lead­ing to in­creas­es in poor nu­tri­tion; anx­i­ety/stress; sui­ci­dal thoughts; do­mes­tic vi­o­lence; child labour; and a re­duc­tion in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The neg­a­tive im­pact on the adult pop­u­la­tion in­clud­ed high­er rates of un­em­ploy­ment as some per­sons had to leave their jobs to be­come stay-at-home teach­ers af­ter schools and day­cares closed; high­er rates of home­less­ness as some were un­able to sat­is­fy their rental oblig­a­tions which in some in­stances, saw stu­dents drop­ping out of school to take up jobs to help pay the rent, buy food, pay util­i­ties, and even care for their younger sib­lings so the par­ents could con­tin­ue work­ing; and the lack and ac­cess to a de­vice and/or in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

In May, Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed that over 2,000 pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents ap­peared to have dropped out of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem since the pan­dem­ic be­gan in March 2020.

In Sep­tem­ber, the min­is­ter said the min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and So­cial De­vel­op­ment had been draft­ed to help in lo­cat­ing these per­sons and ad­dress­ing the cause of their ab­sen­teeism.

In Oc­to­ber 2020, Sec­re­tary of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chi­a­trists of T&T, Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh claimed sui­cide was now the sec­ond high­est cause of death in chil­dren aged 15 to 29 in T&T.

At that time, his re­marks were in sync with that of an­oth­er med­ical pro­fes­sion­al at­tached to a pub­lic clin­ic in Port-of-Spain, who ex­pressed alarm af­ter an in­crease in “sui­cide in­ten­tion” had been ob­served in many of the young peo­ple at­tend­ing the fa­cil­i­ty which catered to per­sons on the low­er end of the eco­nom­ic scale.

Back then, the anony­mous of­fi­cial re­port­ed the pat­tern ob­served in youths over sev­er­al months in­clud­ed ag­gres­sive be­hav­iour and at­ti­tude changes; in­creased anx­i­ety; school­ing/ed­u­ca­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties; fam­i­lies where rel­a­tives re­mained in­car­cer­at­ed; and those whose rel­a­tives at home were sub­stance abusers.

A third of­fi­cial who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty al­so re­port­ed then, “In my prac­tice, I am see­ing a lot of per­sons with sleep dis­tur­bances and eat­ing dis­or­ders...these are all signs of de­pres­sion man­i­fest­ing it­self phys­i­cal­ly.”

In his younger clients, he found chil­dren were be­hav­ing peev­ish or be­com­ing ex­treme­ly ir­ri­tat­ed quick­ly and re­fus­ing to calm down; dis­play­ing in­creased tem­per tantrums; and some had even stopped eat­ing and sleep­ing; or were over-eat­ing due to bore­dom; and a gen­er­al re­duc­tion in the lack of ex­er­cise.

What will next term look like?

As teach­ers, stu­dents and par­ents wait­ed anx­ious­ly to hear what aca­d­e­m­ic Term II would look like as this third wave of COVID-19 in­fec­tions con­tin­ue, sev­er­al de­nom­i­na­tion­al school boards said this might not be the right time to al­low stu­dents in Forms One to Three back out, as they are still strug­gling to get a han­dle on en­sur­ing Forms Four to Six can con­tin­ue as is.

In an in­ter­view on No­vem­ber 26, act­ing sec­re­tary-gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS)k, Vi­jay Ma­haraj said the very con­cept of “so­cial dis­tanc­ing and school are di­rect op­po­sites to one an­oth­er. It doesn’t ex­ist, you can­not main­tain it. It is im­pos­si­ble.”

Al­so on that date, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board, Sharon Man­groo said the rec­om­men­da­tion to have Forms One to Three stu­dents join their Forms Four to Six peers in school at the start of the next year, she said, “Our rec­om­men­da­tion is no.”

On De­cem­ber 22, the MoE an­nounced it’s plans for Terms II and III.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said all post-sec­ondary and ter­tiary stu­dents will be al­lowed to at­tend phys­i­cal class­es for teach­ing and prac­ti­cals from Jan­u­ary 2022. 

All stu­dents of Forms 4-6 or equiv­a­lent will at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly for teach­ing class­es, prac­ti­cals and school-based as­sess­ments from Jan­u­ary 3, 2022. 

Stu­dents of Forms 1-3 or equiv­a­lent will en­gage in re­mote learn­ing in Jan­u­ary 2022, al­low­ing schools to plan for their re­turn to phys­i­cal at­ten­dance in Feb­ru­ary 2022, on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis. 

Pri­ma­ry schools will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate re­mote­ly in Term II, ex­cept for Stan­dard 5 stu­dents, who will at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly from Feb­ru­ary 2022. 

The SEA ex­am­i­na­tion, the min­istry said, will be held on March 31, 2022. It said hav­ing the ex­am lat­er in the year re­sults in chal­lenges. 

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry al­so said Ear­ly Child­hood Care (EC­CE) stu­dents, along with Stan­dards 1-4 will re­sume phys­i­cal at­ten­dance, on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis in April.

Par­ents were en­cour­aged to vac­ci­nate their chil­dren be­fore they re­turn to the class­room.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry cit­ed a UNICEF re­port which said keep­ing schools closed for a long pe­ri­od was hav­ing a detri­men­tal ef­fect on the well-be­ing of chil­dren. 

But it al­so as­sured that it had im­ple­ment­ed mea­sures in schools to main­tain a safe en­vi­ron­ment.

These in­clude the pro­vi­sion of sinks for hand­wash­ing through­out school com­pounds, free-stand­ing and hand­held tem­per­a­ture scan­ners, clean­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion ma­te­ri­als and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of en­try pro­to­cols.