The role of a minister is to formulate and implement policy which will improve a country and the livelihoods of its citizens. They should also clearly articulate those policies to the public.
In the wake of yesterday’s fiasco, it now seems Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly must work on a clear policy to define under what emergency circumstances schools should be closed and when is the appropriate time to disseminate this information and on what media.
If by chance such a policy currently exists, the public ought to know what it is so they know what to expect the next time there is a major weather event.
For much of Wednesday, videos on social media showed the intense rainfall throughout east and central Trinidad, with some communities flooded out. Two citizens were also washed away in floodwaters. By late evening, the Met Office had issued a yellow level riverine alert, maintaining the rainy activity was expected up to today.
Given the precluding circumstances, it is conceivable that the ministry could have made an announcement of the cancellation of school activities for yesterday since Wednesday evening, hours after principals were also forced to send students home early due to flooding woes across the country. This would have allowed citizens to brace for possible rising waters in flood-prone areas or clean-up activity for those affected by severe flooding yesterday.
Instead, the minister waited until the Met Office raised the riverine alert level to Orange at 6.55 am yesterday to make a decision closing schools.
Worse than the inconvenient time, the announcement came via the Minister’s personal Facebook page. Many citizens were sceptical, given the propensity for fake news on such platforms and even media houses scrambled to verify the information before disseminating it to the public.
By 7 am, most teachers and students were either on their way to or already in schools. Meanwhile, the ministry’s official statement of the closures came at 9.30 am which advised, unless a further advisory is issued, schools would resume today.
In defending the late notice yesterday, Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi said with an unorganised weather system, they could not anticipate what was going to happen, noting the perplexity of doing so in the wet season, and hurricane season.
Al-Rawi said he could only speak about Trinidad because the THA was in charge of Tobago’s schools.
In comparison, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, in a press conference at 5pm on Wednesday, alerted parents/guardians and public servants to keep an eye on official social media channels for possible announcements of closures having also been forced to end activities at schools and THA offices early. The official THA notice for activity on the island was released at 9 pm Wednesday, notifying that schools would be closed yesterday but public servants were to return to work. That is a fair amount of advance warning.
Coming out of two years of virtual learning, however, it could have been possible for school to pursue virtual learning, as the University of the West Indies is doing, until it was safe to return to schools.
Contrary to what Minister Al-Rawi believes, the citizens angered by the chaos created by late call yesterday may be less likely to question a decision taken to ensure the public’s safety. In that regard, this is where a clear policy, made in conjunction with the MET Office and other stakeholders, would be helpful going forward.