Incomplete repairs delay start of term for some

Senior Multimedia Reporter

peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt

Not all students of St George’s College will report for classes in Barataria today.

First and Second Form students, who have never had a class at the school’s original location, will be at the Barataria location for the first time today for orientation. The rest of the school will begin classes on Wednesday, parents confirmed.

The school’s reopening was placed under a cloud on Friday after a walk-through of the school.

Staff and parents expressed alarm at the incomplete state of the school after seeing loose cables, leaking air condition units, broken windows and rat droppings in parts of the building.

This prompted the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) president Dianne Cross to directly ask Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly when the work would be completed to have the school ready for students.

Gadsby-Dolly assured the PTSA that the work would be done over the weekend.

When Guardian Media visited the school yesterday, MTS workers were indeed at work.

Cross, who visited the school with the PTSA yesterday, said there was significant work done over the weekend that made the school look a lot better than it did on Friday.

“MTS has been here working hard as they promised they would be,” she said.

This would be the first time in almost two years that classes would be held at the Barataria location. The school was moved to the UTT Valsayn Campus after the partial collapse of a roof in October 2022.

However, some education stakeholders are still expressing concern about preparations for classes at the start of the new academic year.

Former Naparima College principal, Dr Michael Dowlath, has criticised the Education Ministry for not having all schools ready to reopen today although millions of taxpayers’ dollars were allocated for school repairs.

Dowlath, who spoke at the opposition media conference yesterday, warned that delays with school repairs could result in disruptions during the academic year.

“On the eve of the opening of schools, many principals have indicated that little or no work has been done to prepare schools for reopening when $20 million has been allocated for vacation repairs. One must ask whether the priority in education has changed. For high-quality education to take place in our schools, we need safe and secure schools with adequate staffing,” he said.

Dowlath said this could place a financial strain on parents to pay more for transportation to send their children to the surrounding schools where they have been temporarily relocated.

He said schools such as St George’s College and Marabella Anglican Primary School will have disruptions in attendance today because their buildings are not ready to reopen.

He also called out the Education Ministry for the delay in payments for teachers’ UNIMED group health plan.

Last week, TTUTA staged a protest outside the ministry’s headquarters in Port-of-Spain complaining that it takes more than a year for teachers’ claims to be paid.

Dowlath asked why it had to take protest action for the ministry to address the many issues teachers face. He said there seems to be limited to no consultation between the ministry and its key stakeholders including TTUTA and denominational boards.

Tabaquite MP Anita Haynes-Alleyne, the shadow Education Minister also expressed concerns about the lack of care for school infrastructure.

“What we find stomping us are things like infrastructural concerns, so schools are not up to standards or up to scratch. You have schools where the physical building is falling apart and that is a simple fix.

“If it’s broken physically, you fix it. The Ministry of Education is awarded millions of dollars annually for infrastructure, so if you have the money and you know where the problem is you get it done and don’t make excuses. So, my concern is we are not even fixing the simple problems,” she said.

Hayne-Alleyne also called for a data-driven adjustment in the school curriculum, as it appeared that students have been struggling post-pandemic.

“We have seen over the years that our children need a little more help. They would have been asked to carry a significant adjustment, they would have been young children during the pandemic.

“With the staying at home and coming back to physical school, they have been through a lot and I think the onus is on the policymakers to ensure that with the data that we are getting if we see that they are still struggling. Let us put mechanisms in place to help them get where they need to,” she said.

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