Carisa Lee

At the be­gin­ning of the vir­tu­al school term in Sep­tem­ber on­ly 20 of the 120 stu­dents of Four Roads Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School had ac­cess to de­vices to at­tend class­es.

Most par­ents opt­ed to re­ceive week­ly pack­ages and com­mu­ni­cat­ed with their teach­ers via What­sApp.

“Who­ev­er home at the time will give her their phone to use,” one par­ent said.

“Nine­ty per cent of our par­ents can’t af­ford a de­vice for their child,” the prin­ci­pal of Four Roads Gov­ern­ment School, Denise Forde-Williams said.

On Wednes­day that changed as three non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions do­nat­ed 55 tablets to stu­dents.

“We could not just sit back and not get in­volved,” co­or­di­na­tor Heather Welch-Jacelon told Guardian Me­dia.

Through the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Adopt-a-School pro­gramme Welch-Jacelon ral­lied the Vic­to­ria Gar­den’s Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion, the Gar­den Club of Trinidad and the PA­HO/WHO Staff As­so­ci­a­tion to con­tribute the tablets to the stu­dents.

Welch-Jacelon said at first the char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tion was sup­posed to be done by the Gar­den Club on­ly but when she found out how many stu­dents were in need she got oth­er clubs in­volved.

“Now we on­ly have 45 miss­ing that would be a big dif­fer­ence to us be­cause now the chil­dren can be on­line in syn­chro­nous learn­ing with their teach­ers,” Forde-Williams said.

The prin­ci­pal said late­ly the school has been im­prov­ing but was afraid the lack of de­vices avail­able for stu­dents could de­rail the progress but said this con­tri­bu­tion came at the right time.

She said the de­vices would be dis­trib­uted to the se­nior stu­dents who are prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment.

“I al­so pin­point­ed some stu­dents who are at risk who I feel will ben­e­fit like I have some stu­dents in First-Year who I feel need­ed a lit­tle more sup­port,” Forde-Williams said.

“This is such a re­lief,” an­oth­er par­ent said.

Pres­i­dent of PA­HO/ WHO staff As­so­ci­a­tion Joanne Charles hopes to con­tribute more de­vices by the end of the year as 45 stu­dents will still not have ac­cess to on­line class­es.

It’s for this rea­son, Pres­i­dent of the Gar­den Club of Trinidad Lor­raine Agos­ti­ni is call­ing on cit­i­zens to con­tribute what­ev­er they can.

“These kids are our fu­ture, if you could do­nate a (sic) old lap­top or an old tablet you’re not us­ing you can con­tribute,” she con­tin­ued.

Past pres­i­dent of the Vic­to­ria Gar­dens Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion Trevor Mar­tin said he was un­aware of the school’s chal­lenges with on­line learn­ing but opt­ed to con­tribute along with oth­er mem­bers as soon as they found out.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly thanked the good samar­i­tans on be­half of the fam­i­lies they im­pact­ed. She said they showed the chil­dren the im­por­tance of serv­ing oth­ers which she said are pow­er­ful lessons amid a pan­dem­ic. Gads­by-Dol­ly said T&T is grate­ful for their ef­forts.