The Grenada government has taken a decision not to proceed with the arrangements to relocate as an emergency measure, students preparing for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE). The Caribbean Examina-tions Council (CXC), which offers both examinations, has offered to push back the time for these students to write these exams to January 2006 instead of May/June 2005. A release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here yesterday said that the arrangements which the Guyana government along with local individuals and organisations had offered to accommodate some 50 students would no longer be necessary. The state-owned TA Marryshow Community College, which offers CAPE and the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level Examinations, reopened its doors to students on Tuesday. Some 900 students were preparing for the CAPE and GCE A'level examinations at the time of the hurricane. Stabroek News was in Grenada on Tuesday as part of a team of journalists sponsored by the Guyana Government and spoke with the registrar of the college and those students returning to school. Students awaiting the resumption of classes at one of the buildings on the campus of the TA Marryshow Community College. The registrar, Guyanese Nigel Gravesande told Stabroek News that some 20 students had left the island to pursue studies in other Caribbean territories but they have begun trickling back. He expects that the majority would return since the students there pursue an associate degree while studying for the CAPE and GCE 'A' levels exams simultaneously. In addition the students who left found that their fees were higher outside of the island. The Grenada Government subsidises their education at the college. Gravesande, a former Trade Ministry Permanent Secretary in Guyana, said the college would continue to offer all the subjects that were being offered prior to being struck by Ivan. He said apart from damage suffered by Ivan the college was also vandalised and looted. The college lost many of its computers and other teaching and learning tools to thieves. Generators are providing electricity so that programmes requiring power would not suffer. He said that the students have excelled in regional examinations and he has no doubt that they would continue to do well in spite of the challenges confronting them. One student told Stabroek News that on the same day the community college reopened he was going to St Lucia but the Grenada government announced that schools would be reopening soon. "So then I did not want to go because we would have had to spend extra money for accommodation." He said the hurricane has made him more serious about life and work. "Life is just short and everything could go in a day. So while you have it, you just work hard to make the best of your life." Like some of his colleagues, he said the hurricane would be used as a stimulus for them to do better at their exams. The first school reopened on October 1 and a number have been reopening gradually since Ivan damaged the roofs of most of them or completely destroyed some. Some schools are still being used as shelters. Schools had initially re-opened on September 6 for this year but owing to a storm warning as Ivan approached, the government had ordered schools closed at noon. Ivan struck the following day. SOURCE: STABOREKNEWS.COM