Two weeks after physical school reopened for vaccinated students in forms four to six, the attendance rate and, at times, access to education of denominational secondary schools, at least in those run by the Presbyterian church, seem to be much better than at government schools.

One teacher at a government secondary school in east Trinidad said the school’s forms four and five population is about 100. However, over the past two weeks, five students and about 30 teachers have attended school. And most teachers teach both the upper and lower schools.

“Because I teach two subjects in both the upper and lower schools, I am in school every day to teach one student for each class.”

She said the one other student who was vaccinated did not attend school because she lives far away and, seeing that the school maxis are not operational, the child could not afford to travel to school.

The one child in her form four class did not attend online school or collect any work packages for their entire form three year. In addition, they do not recall a lot of the form two work.

“I must say, she is trying and she is doing work so I don’t foresee any problems. So, I’m teaching her my scheme (form four work) and, as things she doesn’t know come up, I do a mini lesson and give her some resources. I can’t do a full lesson because then I wouldn’t finish my scheme and when other students come out, that would keep them back.”

While in school, she can not be online so she has been posting asynchronous work for her students who were not in physical school. She records herself teaching lessons as she would have while online – creating and going through power point slides, showing and explaining videos, explaining examples, and more – and posts it on the school’s online platform.

She also prepares packages for students who are not online.

She said it takes the same effort, time and resources to teach one child or 30 children face-to-face. In-class lessons are different to a virtual lesson with different styles of teaching and different types of activities. The same is true for the work packages.

She usually makes all those preparations late into the week nights and on weekends, leaving very little time for her family life.

“A parallel system, the way they want it to run, it can not work, and the government will not put a vaccine mandate. The policy is you have to vaccinate your child to send them to school so, as far as I’m concerned, if I don’t post work on the online platform for your unvaccinated child, I’m not denying their right to an education. You (the parent) are doing that. Because the education is happening in a classroom in the school.”

[caption id="attachment_919309" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Naparima Girls' High School sixth form students follow health protocols to attend classes in person. - File photo[/caption]

She also does online classes with forms one to three students.

She said since the school’s internet tends to crash if too many people log in at the same time, she has to drive for an hour t