Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said the ministry had not received any adverse reports after schoolchildren returned to virtual classes on Monday.

In a WhatsApp message to Newsday, Gadsby-Dolly said, “Issues of connectivity and problems with logging in to the platform are par for the course in the online environment.”

She said there have been no reports thus far of issues outside of the ordinary affecting large numbers of students or schools anywhere.

She said 800 devices had been sent to students in need this week.

“Of the 23,000 applicants for devices through the means test, 12, 643 have been distributed…That is a total of approximately 35,000 devices distributed over the last school year through the government and corporate Trinidad and Tobago.”

She said all students who completed the means test should be allocated devices by the end of this week.

“There have been reports of parents not completing the means test, and some whose applications were not complete upon submission. These will be dealt with in the upcoming term, as a fresh survey is done to quantify the need.”

She said the ministry will engage stakeholders again next week to discuss the physical reopening of schools.

“This will be the third round of consultation.”

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