Trinidad: 65,000 pupils have no digital access

( Trinidad Express) Ministry of Education is pleading with Corporate Trinidad for assistance as the new school term signals a pivot to digital learning.

As COVID-19 has indefinitely halted face to face learning, it was announced via a press conference on Friday that the first semester of the upcoming academic year will begin on September 1 and end on December 11. However, all in house classes will be moved to online platforms, with the exception of students who do not have devices or internet connections.

According to Minister of Education Dr, Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, these students will instead be required to complete printed packets prepared by teachers on a weekly basis. She stated that while schools will not operate in person in the next semester, buildings will remain open to provide resources to teachers. Whether or not teachers are to report to respective schools on September 1, she said, would be left up to principals.

To facilitate a hybrid curriculum, she said, teachers are required to receive training for both online teaching and the preparation of packages for students. When asked about the effective delivery of teaching to students who do not have access to digital services and will depend on the printed “packages,” she said that she expects teachers to communicate with students through other mediums such as Whatsapp or over the phone. She said that parents should be involved in looking at the feedback of student’s work.

“There will be two categories of students. One, students who are available on the online environment and two students who are not available on the online environment. Teachers may be faced with a mix of both types of students in their classrooms. For those who are available on the online environment it is expected that teachers will utilize the Ministry’s curriculum guidelines for online learning which will be provided for them which will contain useful resources and links and of course the Ministry’s SLMS system which is the online learning platform. “

“However those students who are not available online and that could be that they don’t have devices or connectivity, then teachers are expected to prepare printed packets for these students so that they can access the education that they so desperately need,” she said

She noted that approximately 65,000 students do not have access to devices or resources to engage in online learning. She said that the Government was considering providing some devices to students in need. This consideration she said would be brought to Cabinet next week.

However, she appealed to the business community in the country to provide access to these students. The appeal was made as the “Adopt a school initiative,” under which the Ministry will write to various entities for aid. She said that interest has been shown by the Telecommunications Authority and TTEC to provide some devices.

“Of course the Government will be considering the provision of some devices to students but we are also reaching out to the business community, to chambers of industry, to alumni associations and we are asking Corporate Trinidad and Tobago to become involved in this effort. I will tell you that we have already had outreaches from TATT and TTEC to be able to supply some schools with devices, we understand that not every student may be able to avail themselves of one and that is why we have planned in the outreach for schools term that we will use the printed material, use the TV, radio and social media on the Ministry’s platform so that these students can at least access some information,”