KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

As T&T pre­pares to wel­come In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di to­day, par­ents, teach­ers and ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers are not pleased with the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to dis­rupt schools.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Mar­tin Lum Kin ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered the fact that schools are cur­rent­ly in ex­am­i­na­tion mode at this time be­fore de­cid­ing to dis­miss class­es at 11.30 am to­day. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, the ear­ly dis­missal will min­imise traf­fic con­ges­tion along the Churchill Roo­sevelt, Uri­ah But­ler and the Sir Solomon Ho­choy high­ways as well as oth­er ma­jor road­ways.

But, TTUTA isn’t too sure it will be much help. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Lum Kin said, “This is the time when we are hav­ing end-of-term tests and pro­mo­tion tests too and it is a dis­rup­tion and the schools have to make ad­just­ments. We’re not too cer­tain that even if dis­miss­ing school ear­ly will ease up any of the con­ges­tion on the na­tion’s roads. It may, but we’re not cer­tain if it will be of any sig­nif­i­cance.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTA), Wal­ter Stew­art, is of the be­lief that ear­ly dis­missal will dis­rupt on­go­ing ex­am­i­na­tions.

Stew­art added that while traf­fic may be eased, there is a need for height­ened po­lice pres­ence at ar­eas where stu­dents may gath­er af­ter school.

Stew­art said, “While the ear­ly dis­missal of schools should re­sult in less traf­fic con­ges­tion and re­duced risk, more at­ten­tion should have been placed on the last-minute an­nounce­ment of clo­sure, par­tic­u­lar­ly where schools are in the mid­dle of crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tions. There will al­so be the need for height­ened po­lice pres­ence at fast food out­lets and malls as the ear­ly clo­sure can cre­ate the po­ten­tial for un­su­per­vised stu­dents loi­ter­ing and gath­er­ing. The ear­ly clo­sure, how­ev­er, can pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for fam­i­lies to view the pro­ceed­ings to­geth­er to wit­ness this his­toric vis­it and en­joy a fam­i­ly mo­ment of shared learn­ing.”

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, he said there’s suf­fi­cient time left in the school term to fa­cil­i­tate all ex­am­i­na­tions.

Dowlath said, “Schools close on Ju­ly 11, that’s the fol­low­ing Fri­day so there’s suf­fi­cient time for them to ad­just their time­line sched­ules.”

Dowlath said stu­dents will be al­lowed to gath­er along the road­ways to wit­ness the ar­rival of Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di to­day.

Non-es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vices will al­so be closed ear­ly to­day in an­tic­i­pa­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di’s ar­rival.

At­tempts to con­tact the Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ECA) were fu­tile yes­ter­day.

SEA re­sults 

Mean­while, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter is as­sur­ing par­ents and guardians that the re­sults of the 2025 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion, which is now ac­ces­si­ble on­line, will al­so be made avail­able at schools for those who are un­able to ac­cess it vir­tu­al­ly.

“On Fri­day (to­mor­row), all prin­ci­pals will have ac­cess to the re­sults, so if the par­ents could just go in­to the school on Fri­day morn­ing and they will get their re­sults. The prin­ci­pals have ac­cess to it and they will print it for them, so that elim­i­nates that con­cern.”

He was re­spond­ing to con­cerns ex­pressed by TTUTA yes­ter­day over the SEA re­sults strict­ly be­ing re­leased on­line.

Yes­ter­day, Lum Kin said that if it can on­ly be ac­cessed on­line then many par­ents and stu­dents who do not have in­ter­net ac­cess will be at a dis­ad­van­tage.