Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) yes­ter­day de­scribed a me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on the re­open­ing of schools as a “me­dia and PR cam­paign.”

“It seeks to boost the fact that all schools have re­opened ... and be­lieves that the pub­lic as well as the ed­u­ca­tion fra­ter­ni­ty will be im­pressed by the lat­est me­dia re­lease,” TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said in re­sponse to the re­lease.

In the re­lease, the min­istry said the 143 gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed; 57 Ser­vol Ear­ly Child­hood Ed­u­ca­tion Care cen­tres; 452 pri­ma­ry and 125 sec­ondary schools in Trinidad had re­sumed op­er­a­tions.

The re­lease said due to re­pairs, St George’s Col­lege would be ful­ly re­opened to­mor­row, as mi­nor repack­ing of the Staff Room, Art Room and a few spe­cial­i­ty rooms were still un­der­way.

How­ev­er, school restart­ed for Forms One and Two stu­dents for ori­en­ta­tion.

It said stu­dents of Holy Faith Con­vent in Pe­nal will ro­tate at­ten­dance for the next two weeks.

But Lum Kin said this was un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, as the min­istry had all of the Ju­ly and Au­gust va­ca­tion to make the re­pairs.

“And yes, it’s a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school, how­ev­er, they should not be de­nied the right to have their school prop­er­ly safe and se­cure, and to have stu­dents now on a ro­ta­tion. It is de­mor­al­is­ing to the stu­dents, par­ents and ed­u­ca­tors,” he said.

“TTUTA will not fall for any pub­lic re­la­tions gim­mick and will not be a par­ty to such,” he added.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, prin­ci­pals and teach­ers re­turned to their re­spec­tive schools last Thurs­day and Fri­day to fi­nalise class­room arrange­ments and en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion for stu­dents on their first day of school.

The re­lease al­so said the Ju­ly-Au­gust School Re­pair Pro­gramme ad­dressed sev­er­al crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture needs. How­ev­er, it said re­pair works will con­tin­ue at over 60 schools, with ad­di­tion­al projects set to be­gin in Sep­tem­ber and when it be­comes nec­es­sary dur­ing the school year.

“These projects re­quired ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to be al­lo­cat­ed to the min­istry, as the an­nu­al bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for emer­gency re­pairs was ex­ceed­ed by May 2024 due to the vol­ume of re­pairs re­quired at schools,” it said.

The school feed­ing and Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion trans­port pro­grammes al­so recom­menced yes­ter­day.

Yes­ter­day, was al­so a big day for 23 Venezue­lan chil­dren who, for the first time in years, were able to at­tend a lo­cal school once their par­ents were reg­is­tered to live and work in this coun­try.

On Au­gust 19, the Min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Ed­u­ca­tion host­ed a me­dia con­fer­ence to an­nounce their ac­cep­tance.

Bri­an­na Mendez was one of 23 stu­dents ac­cept­ed in­to the sys­tem. Her moth­er, Fer­bie, told Guardian Me­dia that her daugh­ter was hap­py to at­tend school af­ter wait­ing five years. Bri­an­na was study­ing at the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty, where she learned Eng­lish. Fer­bie said pay­ing for pri­vate school was ex­pen­sive.

“Every year we tried to find a school but we couldn’t, we tried but we couldn’t and it’s very dif­fi­cult to pay for pri­vate school,” she said.

Fer­bie re­vealed that Bri­an­na had her bag and shoes do­nat­ed and she saved and pur­chased the books her daugh­ter need­ed. Bri­an­na, she said, could not wait.

“She told me that she was very hap­py even though she has to wake up 5 o’clock in the morn­ing,” Fer­bie said.

Thir­ty-two more ap­pli­ca­tions from Venezue­lan na­tion­als were sent to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty for ap­proval.