KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is promis­ing ap­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pals and teach­ers a seam­less tran­si­tion when mi­grant pupils are in­te­grat­ed in­to the pub­lic school sys­tem.

Al­though a date is yet to be an­nounced for Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren to be­gin school, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry will be ready to han­dle what­ev­er chal­lenges come its way.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “I think any change would bring with it a cer­tain lev­el of some­times con­tem­pla­tion and some­times re­sis­tance as well. But, once we get our foot in the door and get the first set (mi­grant pupils) in and look at the chal­lenges that may arise for the school as well as the stu­dents, then we would be able to con­tem­plate how we over­come those chal­lenges.”

The min­is­ter said it is a new ex­pe­ri­ence for Venezue­lan mi­grants, the Gov­ern­ment and ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers.

“I think every­one will feel a lit­tle more at ease when we come to that stage. It’s a learn­ing process bit by bit. We haven’t re­al­ly been here be­fore in this par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stance, so there will be some un­ease in some quar­ters. But we will do our best to en­sure that the tran­si­tion is as seam­less as pos­si­ble,” Gads­by-Dol­ly added.

Al­so speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said there are cur­rent bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles be­ing ad­dressed but he was op­ti­mistic Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren will be able to be­gin school soon.

Asked whether he sup­port­ed all mi­grant chil­dren, whether their par­ents were doc­u­ment­ed or not, hav­ing ac­cess to pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion, he said, “Let’s take it one step at a time.”

Browne added, “The Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment is very strong in this re­gard. We recog­nise the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion to chil­dren in this coun­try, no mat­ter where they are from, and work is tak­ing place as we speak in this re­gard to help bring to a re­al­i­ty the ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion at the pri­ma­ry lev­el for chil­dren of par­ents who are mi­grants with­in this coun­try. It is an ac­tive mat­ter and some of the ad­min­is­tra­tive and bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles are be­ing ad­dressed.”

He said once the first batch of mi­grant chil­dren en­ter the pri­ma­ry school sys­tem, all stake­hold­ers will be able to as­sess the ini­tia­tive.

“The ap­proach is to do this on a phased ba­sis so the first batch will be the chil­dren of par­ents who are with­in the mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion frame­work and who have some doc­u­men­ta­tion and the abil­i­ty to de­vel­op sta­tus here. We take it step by step. The ex­pe­ri­ence of that first batch will help in­form the abil­i­ty to ex­pand this fur­ther. Who know where we will be in the fu­ture,” Browne said.

At present, on­ly pri­ma­ry schools un­der the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment have been ear­marked to for Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren.

Ac­cord­ing to Gads­by-Dol­ly, this is be­cause teach­ers as­signed to these schools re­ceived train­ing, in­clud­ing in teach­ing Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage, since 2019.