Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

There will be no school for hun­dreds of sec­ondary school stu­dents across the coun­try to­mor­row and Tues­day.

They have been asked by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion not to re­port for class­es for the first two days of the new term be­cause their schools will be used as ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres for pri­vate can­di­dates writ­ing Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­ams.

The min­istry said 12 schools will re­main closed. They are Ari­ma North Sec­ondary, Bon Air Sec­ondary, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary, La Ro­maine Sec­ondary, Mal­abar Sec­ondary, Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary, Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, San Juan North Sec­ondary, Siparia West Sec­ondary, South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, and Wood­brook Sec­ondary.

Forms One and Two stu­dents of Barataria South Sec­ondary, Barataria North Sec­ondary and Point Fortin Sec­ondary have been told to stay at home and there will be no school for Forms One, Two and Three stu­dents of Mt Hope Sec­ondary and Rio Claro East Sec­ondary.

At North­east­ern Col­lege, there will be no class­es for stu­dents in Forms One, Two, Three and Six and the same ap­plies for stu­dents in Forms One, Two, Three and Four at El Do­ra­do East Sec­ondary and Wa­ter­loo Sec­ondary, as well as Form One stu­dents of Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary who are asked to stay at home.

At Princes Town West Sec­ondary, there will be no class­es for Forms One and Six and at Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary, there will no class­es for Form Two stu­dents.

Stu­dents in Forms Four and Five at­tend­ing El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary and Forms Five and Six stu­dents of Tran­quil­i­ty Sec­ondary are ad­vised not to re­port for class­es.

There will be no class­es for Form Five stu­dents of Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary and West Sec­ondary.

Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Da­vanand Sinanan for com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion were fu­tile.

How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent/Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Zena Ra­matali said while she un­der­stood the clo­sure was to fa­cil­i­tate ex­am­i­na­tions for pri­vate can­di­dates, the NPTA will mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion.

"Our first con­cern is al­ways that no child is hin­dered from re­ceiv­ing an ed­u­ca­tion," she told the Sun­day Guardian.

"If it's to fa­cil­i­tate ex­ams, I re­al­ly don't have a prob­lem with that be­cause it has been a norm where stu­dents will stay at home for a cou­ple days. It's not a per­ma­nent fix­ture but we do hope that schools will be all ready to start this new term which is a very im­por­tant term."