Sec­ondary school stu­dents writ­ing the CSEC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tion will be the first to re­turn to phys­i­cal class­es when the time is deemed right, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said on Sat­ur­day. 
"Our plan is to bring out our sec­ondary school chil­dren start­ing first and fore­most with those in the ex­am year—Forms four, five and six—we bring them out first," he said dur­ing the COVID-19 press con­fer­ence. 
As more of the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion is vac­ci­nat­ed, the rest of the class­es will be brought out. He said this was the on­ly ex­tent to which the school re­open­ing is cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­plored. 
"At this point in time, we're not en­ter­tain­ing the con­ver­sa­tion about tod­dlers and who go­ing to wear a mask. That's just wast­ing time. We not there," he said. 
"We're not down in the pri­ma­ry school yet. We'll deal with that when we get there."
The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is ex­pect­ed to roll out a vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve next week for chil­dren be­tween the ages of 12 and 18 with the as­sis­tance of the Min­istry of Health. 
Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said it was op­ti­mal that all of the stu­dents ex­pect­ed to re­turn to school be vac­ci­nat­ed. 
"We want the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion to be vac­ci­nat­ed be­cause of the way chil­dren in­ter­act there's a high­er risk and be­cause of the en­vi­ron­ment it­self, there's a high­er risk of spread from one per­son to the next," he said.
"So as many peo­ple that could be vac­ci­nat­ed in that age group, the bet­ter the out­come will be in terms of spread if and when we re­turn to that en­vi­ron­ment."
The stu­dents will be vac­ci­nat­ed from Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech dos­es do­nat­ed to T&T from the Unit­ed States this week. It is the on­ly World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO)-ap­proved vac­cine that has been cleared by the body for use in chil­dren be­tween the ages of 12 and 18. While it is al­so safe for use in adults, the Prime Min­is­ter said these will go to chil­dren due to the rare ap­proval. Sinopharm and Ox­ford-As­traZeneca dos­es are avail­able for the adult pop­u­la­tion.