An­na-Lisa Paul

A meet­ing be­tween the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the phys­i­cal re­open­ing of schools for vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms One to Three did not re­sult in fi­nal de­ci­sions on how and when this will be done.

TTUTA of­fi­cials last evening said they had walked away from the meet­ing with­out hav­ing re­ceived any clear or straight-for­ward an­swers to ques­tions as to how the min­istry in­tend­ed to ad­dress un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms Four to Six who are at home and what would be­come of the un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms One to Three – all of whom will be prepar­ing for ex­ams.

The MoE said feed­back had been re­ceived of the dif­fi­cul­ty some schools are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in de­liv­er­ing on­line to Forms 1-3 and phys­i­cal­ly to Forms 4-6 stu­dents - de­spite the pres­ence of con­nec­tiv­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture at the school, or the pro­vi­sion of Mi­Fi de­vices and lap­tops to teach­ers.

The MoE said it is for this rea­son and af­ter analy­sis of the phys­i­cal at­ten­dance da­ta for Forms Four to Six stu­dents, that “the Gov­ern­ment has pro­posed the re­open­ing of phys­i­cal school for all vac­ci­nat­ed sec­ondary stu­dents of ages 12-18. This would be ad­van­ta­geous to both teach­ers and stu­dents, many of whom have been out­side of the class­room for the past nine­teen months.”

It not­ed TTUTA’s po­si­tion that the re­turn of teach­ers to the phys­i­cal class­room should be ac­com­pa­nied by a ces­sa­tion of vir­tu­al or re­mote teach­ing, in or­der to pre­serve the work-life bal­ance of teach­ers.

How­ev­er, in a vir­tu­al up­date, TTUTA Pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas said, “I don’t know if that is good enough for us as ed­u­ca­tors, if that is good enough for us as par­ents to sim­ply hear that our chil­dren’s fu­ture hangs in the bal­ance, to sim­ply hear...that we have the pro­mo­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic in­equity through state pol­i­cy and un­for­tu­nate­ly, with no clear plan as to how our stu­dents will be treat­ed in the very near fu­ture.”

“TTUTA calls for the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of all face to face class­es for all stu­dents of Forms Four and Six, ex­cept for those stu­dents who are re­quired to at­tend class­es to com­plete the prac­ti­cal com­po­nent for the high stakes ex­am­i­na­tions,” Tekah-De Fre­itas said.

She added, “TTUTA cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly dis­agrees with the re­open­ing of phys­i­cal school for Forms One to Three in a man­ner which will cre­ate a high­er lev­el of in­equity and dis­pro­por­tion­ate hard­ship for our stu­dents.”

TTUTA’s To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bradon Roberts said he was left with a “bit­ter taste ob­serv­ing the high-hand­ed, in­sen­si­tive ap­proach adopt­ed with the mea­sures be­ing rolled out now.”

Roberts said teach­ers were stressed out about the lev­el and qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion now be­ing de­liv­ered to their charges.

“Teach­ers could not sim­ply turn off their care and adopt a sim­i­lar in­sen­si­tive ap­proach to­wards the chil­dren not be­ing catered for in this roll out by the min­istry.”

He urged all stake­hold­ers and cit­i­zens to join TTUTA in its call for, “equal op­por­tu­ni­ty and equal ed­u­ca­tion for all as any in­equal­i­ty would re­sult in fur­ther burn-out for teach­ers.”

He said po­lit­i­cal mea­sures will re­sult in in­no­cent chil­dren hav­ing to pay the price.

The MoE said fur­ther dis­cus­sions are sched­uled with the wider stake­hold­er body for to­day, Oc­to­ber 14.