Troupe: Conquering fear key to school reopening push

Eliminating fear among teachers and students has been vital to the reopening of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic, acting chief education officer, Dr Kasan Troupe, has reported.

Troupe made that disclosure on Monday as 21 more schools reopened their doors to students for face-to-face classes in an expanded pilot since 17 resumed in-person interaction in early November.

A 39th school is expected to reopen today.

The Ministry of Education sought to build public confidence, announcing that no student or staff at the original 17 pilot schools had recorded any signs or symptoms of COVID-19 or tested positive for the virus.

Jamaica recorded 11,184 as at Sunday, December 6, with deaths remaining at 265.

Troupe said that the fears stem from a variety of issues such as co-morbidities and the capacity to manage suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 in schools.

“That has created a little fear for our boys and girls and for our teachers, especially because in our primary schools in Jamaica, we don’t have nurses,” she said during the virtual launch of the report ‘Reopening Schools in Latin America and the Caribbean: Keys, Challenges and Dilemmas to Plan the Safe Return to Classrooms’.

Secondary schools are equipped with nurses who often respond to medical emergencies and are responsible for the well-being of staff and students.

Last November, former president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, Owen Speid, made an appeal for the more than 700 primary schools to be equipped with nurses.

Speid had said that dengue, a virus spread by infected mosquitoes, was a a constant threat and that teachers or guidance counsellors were the ones providing basic first-aid assistance to students.

“In our primary schools, we have to set up committees to treat with our health challenges or the concerns with suspected cases. We’ve got our teachers expressing some fear in having to treat with that and so we are developing measures to respond to that so we can understand and accommodate for the fears that persons are feeling,” Troupe said.

President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS), Livern Wright, described the Holness administration’s reopening approach as “tenuous”, hinting that both the education and health ministries should take charge and not yield to the random requests of principals.

“The infection rate is at a point now where many people are suspicious. I just think the ministry is allowing schools because some principals have been asking,” he said.

“I think the [education] ministry is tentative. I think they need to be more decisive about what they are doing and just take responsibility.”

As at November 21, the health ministry revealed that 800 children had contracted COVID-19 – almost eight per cent of the then aggregate 10,284.

But concerns have risen over the two-week period November 7-21, which saw children representing 11.4 per cent of new coronavirus cases for that span.

judana.murphy@gleanerjm.com