Education Minister defends school repair works
Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly has refuted claims by Caroni-Central MP Arnold Ram that the Preysal Secondary School was forced to close its doors due to a rodent infestation.
During a session of the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) to approve an allocation of $5,542,586, Gadsby-Dolly insisted that the necessary works were being done at the secondary school and that it had not closed its doors to students.
“The school has not been shut down, there is a rodent issue similar to what the member just mentioned and similar to what I just answered that is currently being treated. The regional corporation has been working on this issue for at least two weeks.
“The school is not shut down, a portion of the school where the problem was most prevalent was cordoned off and baited and they have been constantly, including today, going to the school, checking the bait and making sure it has not been tampered with,” she said.
The Education Minister further explained that several school repair projects have been launched as part of the government’s emergency refurbishment works. In response to a question from Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh about the allocation of $19 million which had been classified for a special project, Gadsby-Dolly said “83 projects have already been allocated and are ongoing under this particular line item.”
She added: “Following the re-opening of schools in September the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) slammed the Education Ministry for failing to engage in the necessary school repair works.
“Among the schools to be refurbished at a cost of an estimated $10 million was the St George’s College in Barataria. However, there were concerns about the facility’s state of disrepair which was compounded after parts of the school were flooded out last month.”
The minister agreed to provide a list of the contractors involved in the project.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly also noted that to date 96.5 per cent of teachers have received the back pay which had been announced in the 2023/2024 budget.
“Some have not been paid due to 159 having died, retired teachers in the main. We have 40 audit queries going on, 332 internal processing after queries are sorted out, six no longer entitled based on looking at their files and 43 persons overpaid,” she said.
Couva North MP Ravi Ratiram asked for the revised estimate of $186,000,000 for school security and whether that was sufficient to meet the calls for increased security at schools given incidents of violence.
“What you see reflected is based on the bills we have before us. The actual billing for one year is estimated at $255 million so what you see as the original, the actual spend is more than that,” Gadsby-Dolly said.
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