The new academic year will begin in January, according to Education Minister Anthony Garcia who told a news conference this afternoon that while matters are being discussed at the level of cabinet, the COVID-19  situation is still fluid.

This means that the work of three terms will be compressed in two terms.

“We like the options from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) for exams (CSEC and CAPE) for exams in June and July but that is something to look at again because the situation is fluid,” Garcia said.

“When schools reopen, we will need one month to prep for students to write exams, for supervisors and invigilators to be trained and another month for the exam papers to be corrected and then placement will take another month,” Garcia said about the local Secondary Entrance Exam, SEA.

“The third term of the school years which should start next Monday should be abolished so that  SEA, CSEC and CAPE should be held in the next term ( starting in September) and that is a decision that is yet it be taken by cabinet, ” Garcia said.

DISTANCE LEARNING

The Ministry of Education says that distance learning is available at www.learn.moe.gov.tt which is the work of hundreds of teachers who took up the mantle to create content for every educational level.

Still, many students are outside of the loop because they have neither devices nor wifi.

And teachers too.

“We have laptops that are housed at all schools across the country and were discussing the notion of getting the devices to all teachers,” Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr Francis Lovell said.

 “The students present a much larger issue because there are about  60,000 students who may not have the devices. That is a large number which creates a tremendous cost,” Lovell said.

The Catholic Board is actively engaged in trying to access devices to make them available to students, Lovell admitted, but could not give more information on whether the government will be able to help students.

Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, the process was underway to increase the bandwidth at schools. At least 94 per cent of the University of the West Indies (UWI) students are no engaged in online learning, like the students at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, UTT.

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