TTUTA: 'Education Division not fully ready for new school year'

The THA Division of Education, Innovation and Energy has done a lot, but is not fully ready for the new school year, says TTUTA Tobago officer Bradon Roberts.

The division said in a release that it was ready for the new academic year.

Roberts said he had seen the release but believes the division is not ready with all the measures outlined.

“Politicians and their involvement in the media...they would always paint a better picture than it actually is.”

He said he has been in related meetings, as he is a part of the committee working on preparing for school to reopen in September, and while a lot of things are in place, others still need to be worked on.

“Some of the major things would be the connectivity issues, accessibility in terms of laptops and so on...I know they are working on it and so on, but it's not that they’re ready, they are working on it." So it was not accurate "to come to the media to say that we’re ready and so on,” he said.

In the interim, Roberts said that he remains impressed with the proactive work that would have been done.

“They would have trained a large number of teachers; a small pocket of teachers is left to be trained. It’s anticipated that by the first week of September, they should have all teachers trained for online delivery,” he said.

On the guidelines for content for delivery, those had been put in place for the primary schools and those for secondary schools were being worked on, he said.

“Teachers will have a lot to do in terms of bridging that gap, as the minister is asking of teachers now for persons who don’t have connectivity to have print ready for them.

"Now that’s another set of planning, another set of photocopying, and that same one teacher who have their own children to see about, they have their online lessons to prepare, which is not an easy task. You now have to look for appropriate videos to your particular lesson, you may now have to create some of those readings yourself, you may have to create some pictures yourself which would take a lot of work.”

He said he has been a part of a team preparng online lessons for notes master (part of the PowerPoint app), which the ministry is using.

“And that is tedious. One lesson might even take you a day or two, if you want to get the relevant videos and the relevant pictures.

“So having to do that, then to set aside printed work for those who do not have access and then arranging the drop-off and then to pick up –the drop-off and pick-up with health concerns.

"And now you have to be correcting those physical work to go out and do the online at the same time.”

He added: “The faster they resolve the accessibility and connectivity issues...the better it would be for the teachers. who have a major role to play in the educating online at this time.”