HEART/NSTA Trust to Reopen on A Phased Basis

The HEAR/NSTA Trust will be reopening in October on a phased basis, using the mixed teaching model incorporating virtual sessions and face-to-face teaching.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Education pushed back the opening of schools to Monday, October 5, due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases.

The country’s national training agency originally suspended face-to-face training earlier this year, in keeping with the health and safety stipulations set by the Government in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Managing Director of the HEART/NSTA Trust, Dr. Janet Dyer, said all programmes being done online now will continue in the same format for the new academic year.

“We had put in place a phased reopening, but based on what is happening, we are going to be pushing back the phased reopening to coincide with the dates that were set out by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information. We will be maintaining the mixture of face-to-face and online training,” Dr. Dyer said.

Meanwhile, she noted that students remain responsive to the new mixed approach to teaching and learning.

“So, we started that engagement using all the facilities that we had in place. We used the Moodle platform to do theoretical classes, we did classes using Webex, Microsoft teams, WhatsApp, and for those persons who were not able to access anything using the online facilities, we literally printed the document and would meet them at points. Students would then come and pick up at the security post, do the work and then return it, so we tried just about everything to ensure that we kept our trainees engaged,” Dr. Dyer said.

The HEART/NSTA Trust continues to encourage students and staff to remain safe during this period by observing social distancing, sanitising and the wearing of masks.

For more information, persons can visit the Agency’s website at heart-nsta.org.