JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Schools online pandemonium

by

Ira Mathur
1744 days ago
20201017

This week I spoke to a school vice prin­ci­pal (un­named due to Pub­lic Ser­vice reg­u­la­tions) who has raised the alarm that since the start of the COVID-19-pro­pelled dis­tance learn­ing eight months back, hun­dreds of the na­tions’ school­child­ren have dropped out of the school sys­tem.

“ ‘I am the prin­ci­pal of a high-risk school in a low-in­come area with gangs and gun ac­tiv­i­ty. 70 per cent of my stu­dents have de­vices, 60 per cent have in­ter­net ac­cess, and 90 per cent are us­ing smart­phones to at­tend on­line class­es. On­ly ten per cent have lap­tops. We have stu­dents who ask not to have their cam­eras on or to keep their mikes off due to an ad­verse home en­vi­ron­ment and find it a chal­lenge to carve a study space even if it’s against a blank wall.

‘Giv­ing out lap­tops en-mass is not the an­swer. In the past, we gave out lap­tops–they were de­stroyed with­in a month, sold by par­ents, or used to watch porn. School­child­ren should be giv­en lap­tops af­ter hav­ing a means test, so peo­ple can pay half, quar­ter, or noth­ing.

‘Cur­rent­ly, stu­dents have two op­tions for learn­ing: at­tend on­line class­es or come to school to pick up prepre­pared pack­ages on Mon­day and re­turn as­sign­ments to school by Fri­day. Stu­dents with­out in­ter­net ac­cess or de­vis­es who pick up pack­ages–up to 30 per cent are be­com­ing a sub­class. With­out in­ter­ac­tion, teacher su­per­vi­sion or struc­ture when they take home a ‘pack­age’, they are falling back and will find it im­pos­si­ble to rein­te­grate in­to a school sys­tem, even via Zoom. Oth­ers, eight months in­to re­mote learn­ing, even the bright, mo­ti­vat­ed ones are so de­sen­si­tised to school are not pur­su­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion.

‘Ten per cent of stu­dents in my school, in Forms 4 and 5, have dropped off the face of the earth to work to help their fam­i­lies and this is hap­pen­ing in schools at­tend­ed by low-in­come stu­dents coun­try­wide.

‘Their ad­dress­es are in­cor­rect or in­com­plete, phone num­bers don’t work, and if you do con­nect, their par­ents say he or she "gone and work and not com­ing back.”

‘For these stu­dents with­out sup­port, the school was a safe space. Now we need to cre­ate safe­ty in their homes, so they don’t choose crime or drop out.

‘A one-size di­rec­tive from the top does not fit all.

‘Stu­dents ac­cess to the in­ter­net and abil­i­ty to use de­vise changes dai­ly de­pend­ing on their abil­i­ty to pay for on­line ac­cess. Zoom is al­ways be­ing up­dat­ed and re­quires in­creas­ing space.

‘The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry needs to find out how each school is func­tion­ing and cater to var­ied needs. You could give me a lap­top, but I may not have elec­tric­i­ty. A phone or tablet may work bet­ter for some. Some schools need ex­tra ma­te­r­i­al for chil­dren go­ing home with pack­ages; flexi class time; or more soft­ware and tech­ni­cal train­ing.

‘We are see­ing on­line af­ter­noon ab­sen­teeism across the board, even in pres­tige schools.

‘The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been col­lect­ing a data­base of par­ents and stu­dents for years. It's time they use it and get gov­ern­ment-based so­cial work­ers and agen­cies like the Chil­dren Pro­tec­tion Unit to vis­it high-risk stu­dents while lo­cat­ing pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing for these fam­i­lies.

‘We need gov­ern­ment in­ter­net, a free on­line re­search li­brary which school­child­ren can ac­cess with a user name and pass­word like parental con­trol.

‘Work­ing par­ents of­ten leave younger chil­dren for old­er chil­dren to su­per­vise at home. The Gov­ern­ment must en­cour­age em­ploy­ers to cre­ate spaces so par­ents can bring young chil­dren to work.

‘We have been in a pan­dem­ic for eight months. Schools have been shut since March 2020. Prin­ci­pals and teach­ers have risen to the chal­lenges of on­line learn­ing. The Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion has not had a sin­gle gen­er­al meet­ing with my school. There is on­ly top-down com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Maybe it’s dif­fer­ent in oth­er schools, but it’s dis­heart­en­ing when tech­nocrats who have nev­er taught a class are mak­ing de­ci­sions with­out con­sult­ing us. No­body is tak­ing our school is­sues to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion–nor do we get feed­back.

'The cur­rent sys­tem of re­mote teach­ing if not reme­died, will ir­repara­bly widen the gap be­tween the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’ To plug the haem­or­rhag­ing of chil­dren’s hu­man po­ten­tial and cap­i­tal, high-risk schools like ours need di­a­logue not di­rec­tives.’”

As told to Ira Math­ur.

Ira Mathur


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored