Fewer than 3,000 students return to physical school

As hun­dreds of vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms Four to Six re­turned to the phys­i­cal class­rooms yes­ter­day—hun­dreds more logged in vir­tu­al­ly but some were dis­ap­point­ed af­ter teach­ers failed to up­load class­es syn­chro­nous­ly and they were left with­out a dai­ly les­son plan.

How­ev­er, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who toured two sec­ondary schools in Port-of-Spain to wit­ness the re­open­ings first hand, said close to 3,000 stu­dents from 110 schools turned out yes­ter­day.

But even as of­fi­cials were fo­cused on en­sur­ing the re­open­ing was smooth, two ac­tivists tied to The New Wave Move­ment were de­tained by po­lice af­ter they at­tempt­ed to de­liv­er a let­ter to the min­is­ter, de­mand­ing the re­turn of all stu­dents to schools.

Umar Ab­dul­lah and Ian Moody were forcibly re­moved by po­lice af­ter se­cu­ri­ty guards at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters, called for as­sis­tance af­ter the men en­tered the build­ing and in­sist­ed on spe­cial arrange­ments.

Ab­dul­lah last week made pub­lic his in­ten­tion to de­liv­er the let­ter and called on par­ents and stu­dents to gath­er at the min­istry dai­ly to high­light the mea­sure they claimed was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry.

Activist Umar Abdullah is ushered away by police officers after he refused to leave the the Ministry of Education without delivering a letter to Minister Nyan Gadsby Dolly on St Vincent Street,Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

At that time, he vowed the ac­tion would con­tin­ue un­til both vac­ci­nat­ed and un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents were al­lowed to re­turn to school phys­i­cal­ly.

Ab­dul­lah and Moody were de­tained around 9.30 am and re­leased ap­prox­i­mate­ly two hours lat­er with a warn­ing to de­sist from en­gag­ing in such acts.

How­ev­er, four oth­er peo­ple who were part of the hand­ful of peo­ple who ac­com­pa­nied Ab­dul­lah to the min­istry were held up to late yes­ter­day—af­ter they were caught record­ing sev­er­al school prin­ci­pals col­lect­ing lap­tops for their re­spec­tive schools.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter re­as­sured stu­dents who re­turned to class­es that things were in place for them.

Ad­dress­ing stu­dents at Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege and St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, pri­or to host­ing a Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day, Row­ley in­ter­act­ed with the prin­ci­pals, teach­ers and stu­dents at both schools and of­fered words of en­cour­age­ment to all.

Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly said they were still col­lect­ing da­ta re­gard­ing the num­ber of stu­dents out yes­ter­day. She said many schools had not ros­tered all stu­dents of Forms Four to Six to be present at school on the same days.

How­ev­er, she said based on the da­ta re­ceived from 110 out of 127 sec­ondary schools in Trinidad—there were 2,887 stu­dents of Forms Four to Six out yes­ter­day.

The Min­is­ter added, “Though all stu­dents/par­ents have not yet re­spond­ed to school nor min­istry-ad­min­is­tered sur­veys re­gard­ing vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, the to­tal num­ber of stu­dents from these 110 schools in­di­cat­ing that they are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed up to this time is 5,976.”

Students of Tranquility Secondary School, on Victoria Avenue, Port-of-Spain, leave the school’s compound after the first day back to school, yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

At Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Mu­cu­rapo, where a 90 per cent stu­dent turn-out was re­port­ed, stu­dents be­gan fill­ing a time cap­sule.

Dur­ing the as­sem­bly, Prin­ci­pal Fa­ther Gre­go­ry Au­gus­tine urged the stu­dents to pray for self-dis­ci­pline; grow with in­tegri­ty of char­ac­ter and learn the val­ue of love and car­ing for each oth­er. He said the de­ci­sion to bury the time cap­sule, which will be opened in 2045, was prompt­ed by the oc­cur­rence of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.