RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Some par­ents looked teary-eyed while oth­ers smiled and waved as they dropped off their chil­dren for school for the first time in al­most two years on Mon­day.

“It’s bit­ter­sweet,” Lin­da Dood­nath said as she watched her daugh­ter walk through the gates of the Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege in Debe.

Her hus­band Ra­jin Dood­nath said, “It’s been two years and we have to learn to live with the new nor­mal.”

Gee­ta Kan­hai echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

“I’m not wor­ried. She is ma­ture and she knows what she has to do, sani­tise, wear her masks and re­main so­cial­ly dis­tanced,” Kan­hai said. Her daugh­ter Vi­jan­ti smiled say­ing she was hap­py to be in school.

In­side the com­pound, all stu­dents were giv­en tem­per­a­ture checks be­fore they were al­lowed to en­ter. Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers and oth­er staff were present to guide the stu­dents to their class­rooms.

At Debe Sec­ondary School at the M2 Ring Road, sim­i­lar checks were done. 

One par­ent who asked not to be named or pho­tographed stood by the fence, her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m wor­ried. I know the virus is spread­ing and I am won­der­ing if send­ing him was the best thing to do,” she whis­pered.

She stood by the fence long af­ter he dis­ap­peared in­to the school build­ing.

An­oth­er par­ent con­soled her and even­tu­al­ly, she drove off.

Students of Debe Secondary School arrive with their parents on the first day out for Forms One to Three yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

An­oth­er par­ent Kari­ma Ad­har, who waved good­bye to her son Sameer, said she was hap­py to send him to school.

“He was very ex­cit­ed to meet his friends. Since Stan­dard Five, he has not been in school and he knows his friends from on­line but has nev­er met them. I don’t feel wor­ried be­cause I know he un­der­stands safe­ty and they need in­ter­ac­tion at this stage of their lives,” Ad­har said.

Some schools such as San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School had a smooth flow to the start of phys­i­cal class­es. Mark­ers were placed di­rect­ing stu­dents to class­rooms and wash­rooms. Build­ing B was opened up to al­low more class­room space and a dri­ve-through was set up at Farah Street to al­low safe drop-offs and pick­ups.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Head of the Move­ment for Con­cerned Par­ents Clarence Men­doza said san­i­ta­tion re­mained an is­sue in schools.

“MTS is un­der­staffed for clean­ing. It is two years since chil­dren were out of school and we thought the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion would have had the schools in bet­ter or­der,” Men­doza said.

Over­crowd­ed class­rooms were al­so an is­sue, Men­doza added. 

“In some schools, there were 24 stu­dents in a class­room and this was too much,” Men­doza said adding that he hoped more clean­ers could be hired.

Mean­while, the sec­ond vice pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­lon Seales agreed that san­i­ta­tion was an is­sue, not­ing that teach­ers and oth­er staff had to clean class­rooms them­selves. 

“We would like to ap­plaud the ef­forts of school prin­ci­pals and staff rep­re­sen­ta­tives for mak­ing a work­able so­lu­tion. In many schools, while min­is­ter spoke about MTS and con­stant clean­ing, we did not see that in a lot of the schools we vis­it­ed,” Seales said.

He added that so­cial dis­tanc­ing is al­so an is­sue in schools.

Students of St Joseph Convent, San Fernando, walk around the courtyard of the school on return of Forms One to Three students, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

“We in TTUTA have a re­al prob­lem with the three feet be­ing al­lowed in the schools. Most schools were able to get the three feet us­ing meth­ods like di­ag­o­nal seat­ing. Prin­ci­pals are go­ing be­yond to make this sys­tem work,” he added.

Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, in a state­ment said the min­istry will try its best to en­sure schools are safe.

“Lev­els of at­ten­dance, im­ple­men­ta­tion of safe­ty pro­to­cols and gen­er­al readi­ness were as­sessed by the team of min­istry of­fi­cials. From all re­ports, 99 per cent of our 600-odd schools were able to wel­come stu­dents phys­i­cal­ly,” she said.

She added that at sec­ondary schools, teacher and stu­dent at­ten­dance av­er­aged 84.5 per cent and 65 per cent re­spec­tive­ly, while at pri­ma­ry schools, 91 per cent of teach­ers and 73 per cent of stu­dents were in at­ten­dance. 

She not­ed that the min­istry will pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port to schools to en­sure that all schools are phys­i­cal­ly opened by Wednes­day. 

Students of Debe Secondary School arrive with their parents on the first day out for Forms One to Three yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA