The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has tak­en a step for­ward in its dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney with the launch of a new on­line stu­dent in­take ap­pli­ca­tion de­signed to stream­line en­roll­ment process­es and digi­tise school records.

The First Year In­fant Reg­is­tra­tion Sys­tem (T&T), known as FIRSTT, is aimed at mod­ernising and sim­pli­fy­ing the school reg­is­tra­tion process by shift­ing from a pa­per-based sys­tem to a cen­tralised dig­i­tal plat­form.

Se­cu­ri­ty and ease of use are cen­tral to the plat­form’s de­sign, en­sur­ing a smooth adop­tion process for par­ents, ad­min­is­tra­tors, and stake­hold­ers.

Un­veiled yes­ter­day at the Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­er in Port-of-Spain, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of this dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, stat­ing, "This ap­pli­ca­tion is part of a suite of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects that have been un­der­way at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for some time."

She high­light­ed the im­por­tance of mov­ing away from tra­di­tion­al pa­per records to im­prove op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and da­ta ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty.

"This par­tic­u­lar ap­pli­ca­tion fol­lows our dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney, which we have been un­der­tak­ing for sev­er­al years," Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She added the min­istry's com­mit­ment to in­no­va­tion, not­ing that on­line ap­pli­ca­tions for Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) have been op­er­a­tional since 2022, ben­e­fit­ing par­ents and pupils.

Since 2022, the min­istry has in­tro­duced sev­er­al dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing on­line ap­pli­ca­tions for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), a re­sults por­tal, and var­i­ous on­line means tests for ed­u­ca­tion­al grants and re­sources.

Em­pha­siz­ing the im­por­tance of dig­i­tiz­ing records, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter de­scribed the school man­age­ment sys­tem as a foun­da­tion­al project to trans­form stu­dent and school records in­to dig­i­tal for­mats.

"It is some­thing that is tak­ing quite some time. We have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in trans­fer­ring stu­dent and school records on­line for all of our teach­ers—13,000 teach­ers—and over 200,000 stu­dents.

"One is­sue is the propen­si­ty to lose records; an­oth­er is that over time, these doc­u­ments can be­come out­dat­ed or dam­aged, caus­ing se­ri­ous is­sues with our ef­fi­cien­cy," Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

This new ap­pli­ca­tion will be open for a six-week pe­ri­od, giv­ing par­ents am­ple time to fa­mil­iarise them­selves with the sys­tem and com­plete the nec­es­sary steps.

The Min­is­ter en­cour­aged par­ents to take ad­van­tage of the re­sources avail­able, in­clud­ing in­struc­tion man­u­als and on­line sup­port, to en­sure a seam­less ex­pe­ri­ence.

She re­as­sured, "We want our par­ents to feel con­fi­dent; we’ve an­tic­i­pat­ed every ques­tion you may have."

Par­ents can ac­cess FIRSTT at par­ent­por­tal.moe.gov.tt.