Teachers urged to take `Isolation Day’ despite...

“If you want to resolve this issue call the union and the ministry together rather than jumping around making threats to the teachers,” McDonald posited.

Furthermore, McDonald questioned why the ministry hasn’t objected to the decision taken by Bishops’ High, Queen’s College and St Stanislaus College to close face-to-face school for a two-week period.

Like Lyte, she also called on teachers to “stand together” and press for safe working environments not only for themselves but colleagues and their students.

Minister of Education Priya Manickchand could not be reached for comment yesterday.

During the press conference, Lyte reiterated that the Ministry of Education has been guilty of breaching both the gazetted COVID-19 guidelines as well as the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) social distancing advice.

Students are being made to sit two to a bench while classes are in session which clearly breaches the Ministry of Health’s six feet apart mandate as well as the WHO’s minimum one metre apart advice, he said, before noting that education officers are going to schools instructing that where seating is limited that be done.

“We have seen a shifting of the goalposts. The Ministry of Education, they have breached the COVID-19 protocol established by the COVID Task Force that still to this day is saying a safe social distance is six feet apart. That hasn’t changed in the COVID gazetted order. Alright, let us see that we are looking at what is recommended by WHO as a safe distance of one metre. Is it safe to place two children on a bench?” Lyte asked a virtual meeting of teachers and parents on Friday evening.

He lambasted the Ministry of Education for the haste in which it reopened those schools without properly sanitizing or putting prevention mechanisms in place. The union added that it deemed the current spike in COVID-19 cases as a danger for teachers, learners and their families.

“We believe keeping teachers and students out of crowded schools will help to reduce the present spike in COVID positive cases in Guyana while at the same time schools which have ventilation, water, and washroom issues will be fixed by the MoE. Also, we know that any caring government will listen to the voices of its people,” the letter concluded.

The ministry and union have been at odds as it relates to the reopening of schools for face-to-face learning amidst skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers.