AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

As schools in To­ba­go re­open fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions, TTUTA To­ba­go of­fi­cer Bradon Roberts has raised con­cerns over the de­ci­sion to close all schools on the is­land.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme on Wednes­day, Roberts ac­knowl­edged the ad­vice and guid­ance pro­vid­ed by TEMA (To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency) and oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties but ques­tioned whether a blan­ket shut­down was jus­ti­fied.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy on Tues­day or­dered the im­me­di­ate clo­sure of all To­ba­go schools due to ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions as both is­lands were un­der a Yel­low Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert.

Schools in Trinidad were not or­dered closed.

“I am trust­ing the ad­vice that TEMA gave that would have been sound ad­vice, that re­sult­ed in all schools be­ing closed. But it is con­cern­ing that we are go­ing be los­ing teach­ing days every time rain falls,” Roberts said.

He not­ed that while schools in the coun­try­side were most­ly af­fect­ed by the ad­verse weath­er and should take ap­pro­pri­ate cau­tion­ary mea­sures, schools in ar­eas such as Bon Ac­cord and Ply­mouth were large­ly un­af­fect­ed.

Roberts added that, in ad­di­tion to the loss of a teach­ing day when such or­ders are is­sued, par­ents are al­so se­vere­ly af­fect­ed.

“When I saw the amount of rain falling this morn­ing, I an­tic­i­pat­ed that some par­ents would have been kind of watch­ing, or scep­ti­cal,” he said, “be­cause the chal­lenge is send­ing the chil­dren to school and then be­ing called to pick them back up. That's a big­ger chal­lenge than know­ing that there is no school from the on­set.”

Re­spond­ing to yes­ter­day’s school clo­sure, TEMA di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art, al­so a guest on to­day’s edi­tion of The Morn­ing Brew, con­firmed re­ports of flood­ing at Spey­side High School and blocked road­ways near Rox­bor­ough due to fall­en trees, jus­ti­fy­ing pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures.

Stew­art al­so con­firmed that schools in To­ba­go will re­open to­day.