Mo­ments af­ter the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­vealed that phys­i­cal class­es will re­sume for all sec­ondary and ter­tiary stu­dents as well as Stan­dard Five pupils from Feb­ru­ary, the pres­i­dent of the Move­ment for Con­cerned Par­ents Clarence Men­doza has made it clear par­ents will not be send­ing their chil­dren to school be­cause of ris­ing COVID-19 cas­es. 

“We will be keep­ing our chil­dren at home,” Men­doza told Guardian Me­dia in re­sponse to the min­istry’s re­lease which no­ti­fied the pub­lic about the full re­turn of phys­i­cal class­es. Ear­ly child­hood schools and pri­ma­ry schools will al­so be re­open­ing for Stan­dards 1 to 4 in April.

In a five-page state­ment yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion de­tailed how the re­main­der of the school year—terms II and III will look in 2022.

It said the de­ci­sion was made fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tions with wider stake­hold­ers and TTUTA on No­vem­ber 25 and 26 and again with TTUTA on De­cem­ber 10.

But in an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion, Men­doza ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of putting all cit­i­zens at risk.

“The par­ent body is very dis­grun­tled. We have been mon­i­tor­ing the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as it con­sults with TTUTA. Par­ents say clear­ly that they will be keep­ing kids at home un­til bet­ter can be done.” 

He added, “Whether they are vac­ci­nat­ed or not, they will keep their chil­dren home.”

In the mean­time, Men­doza said par­ents are home­school­ing their chil­dren.

“The pan­dem­ic is chang­ing, the new vari­ant is tak­ing over. The hos­pi­tals are filled. This is noth­ing new but to de­lib­er­ate­ly put chil­dren out there when the cas­es are so high is ask­ing too much from par­ents and they are not go­ing to do that.”

He ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that his or­gan­i­sa­tion was not con­sult­ed.

“The min­istry has been con­sult­ing with TTUTA and we al­so know many teach­ers will not get vac­ci­nat­ed ei­ther. This is a chal­lenge for par­ents. Even though some teach­ers and prin­ci­pals are vac­ci­nat­ed, it is on­ly 50 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion that is vac­ci­nat­ed,” he added.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to TTUTA’s pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas to find out whether TTUTA has agreed to the new guide­lines but she de­clined to com­ment. 

Sec­ond vice pres­i­dent Kyr­la Robert­son-Thomas said she will on­ly com­ment af­ter she reads the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s state­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, schools have not been the cause of ris­ing COVID cas­es.

 It said a to­tal of 162 in­fec­tions were re­port­ed be­tween Oc­to­ber 4 to De­cem­ber 10. 

“This agrees with glob­al re­ports that phys­i­cal school has not been proven to cause sig­nif­i­cant ris­es in the lev­el of COVID-19 in­fec­tions with­in coun­tries.”

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said all post-sec­ondary and ter­tiary stu­dents will be al­lowed to at­tend phys­i­cal class­es for teach­ing and prac­ti­cals from Jan­u­ary 2022. 

 All stu­dents of Forms 4-6 or equiv­a­lent will at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly for teach­ing class­es, prac­ti­cals and school-based as­sess­ments from Jan­u­ary 3rd, 2022. 

Stu­dents of Forms 1-3 or equiv­a­lent will en­gage in re­mote learn­ing in Jan­u­ary 2022, al­low­ing schools to plan for their re­turn to phys­i­cal at­ten­dance in Feb­ru­ary 2022, on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis. 

Pri­ma­ry Schools will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate re­mote­ly in Term II, ex­cept for Stan­dard 5 stu­dents, who will at­tend school phys­i­cal­ly from Feb­ru­ary 2022. 

The SEA ex­am­i­na­tion, the min­istry said, will be held on March 31, 2022. It said hav­ing the ex­am lat­er in the year re­sults in chal­lenges. 

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry al­so said Ear­ly Child­hood Care (EC­CE) stu­dents, along with Stan­dards 1-4 will re­sume phys­i­cal at­ten­dance, on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis in April.

Par­ents were en­cour­aged to vac­ci­nate their chil­dren be­fore they re­turn to the class­room.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry cit­ed a UNICEF re­port which said keep­ing schools closed for a long pe­ri­od was hav­ing a detri­men­tal ef­fect on the well-be­ing of chil­dren. 

But it al­so as­sured that it had im­ple­ment­ed mea­sures in schools to main­tain a safe en­vi­ron­ment.

These in­clude the pro­vi­sion of sinks for hand­wash­ing through­out school com­pounds, free-stand­ing and hand­held tem­per­a­ture scan­ners, clean­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion ma­te­ri­als and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of en­try pro­to­cols.