An­na Lisa Paul

As record num­bers of pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ue to be record­ed in T&T, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of the Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NCP­TA) is call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) to re­con­sid­er just how the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am will be ad­min­is­tered on June 10.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day, NCP­TA’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Shami­la Ra­heem said, “The COVID-19 cas­es are com­ing in fast and fu­ri­ous right now and we need to look at that.”

“In light of this, we can’t send out 20,000 plus chil­dren with teach­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors, prin­ci­pals and SEA su­per­vi­sors to do this ex­am.”

An­tic­i­pat­ing that ad­di­tion­al re­stric­tions would have been im­posed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Ra­heem stressed, “The cas­es are too high right now to say any­thing about chil­dren go­ing back to school.”

It was hoped that Stan­dard Five pupils, due to write the ex­am next month, would have been al­lowed to re­turn to the phys­i­cal class­room on April 12, when the third aca­d­e­m­ic term re­sumed.

How­ev­er, as the virus spiked dur­ing the ear­ly part of April, a de­ci­sion was tak­en by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties not to move ahead with this de­ci­sion and in­stead, have all pri­ma­ry school pupils con­tin­ue with on­line school­ing.

Ra­heem cau­tioned, “We can’t put so many chil­dren at risk just for an ex­am.”

The cur­rent re­stric­tions will re­main in ef­fect un­til May 31.

Mean­while, Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent, Car­lene Hayes had sought to find out if teach­ers are to be vac­ci­nat­ed dur­ing this phase of the vac­cine roll-out pro­gramme.

She said al­though teach­ers have been deemed es­sen­tial work­ers, some peo­ple were be­ing turned away from health cen­tres.

Hayes said, “Some prin­ci­pals and teach­ers will get the vac­cine due to NCD’s, but we should be giv­en the op­tion as es­sen­tial work­ers. A teacher called the SWRHA yes­ter­day (Sun­day) and got this re­sponse. She had no NCD.”

An­oth­er teacher said: “I called and the nurse said that they have no di­rec­tive about teach­ers as es­sen­tial work­ers.”

Like Ra­heem, Hayes too ex­pressed con­cern that, “This is an is­sue, es­pe­cial­ly where pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pals and teach­ers have to su­per­vise the SEA ex­am on June 10.”

Asked yes­ter­day if teach­ers would be in­clud­ed in the list of per­sons to be vac­ci­nat­ed now, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, a list of teach­ers op­er­at­ing in sec­ondary schools for Forms Four to Six - as well as prin­ci­pals and vice prin­ci­pals - was re­quest­ed and is ex­pect­ed to be hand­ed over short­ly.

He as­sured, “Once I get that list, due con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to that.”