Our school children deserve better

If the old adage that a picture paints a thousand words is true, then the photograph of the back of Mt Hope Secondary school on the front page of Tuesday’s T&T Guardian tells a story of grime, extreme neglect, dilapidation and deplorable conditions.

The dilapidated conditions of the 52-year-old school were described by a Parent Teachers Association member on Monday.

The supposition that this building is not fit for children, teachers or the ancillary staff that work there is borne out by the long list of repairs the school requires.

That list was provided to this newspaper by Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly. She said, in addition, through the National Maintenance Training and Security Company (MTS), a contractor is being procured to complete the repairs to the school since the Government cannot afford to construct a new school there.

While the minister must be thanked for her honesty, the question remains why was the major remedial work the school obviously requires not completed by September 2? On the first day of the new school term, why was Minister Gadsby-Dolly referring to a contractor being procured to complete the school repairs? When were the repairs started and when are they scheduled to be completed?

Asked why the repairs on the school were not addressed during the long vacation, the minister was quoted as saying, “The funding required to implement the entire list of school repair projects for the critical repair programme 2024 totalled $190 million. An initial $20 million was available to the Ministry of Education, and that was utilised to deal with the most critical works. As more funding became available, other critical projects were added to the work programme.”

This suggests that Mt Hope Secondary was not among the schools slated for the critical repairs required for it to be in a more suitable condition for the new school term. It also raises the possibility that the critical repairs for the school have been postponed for many years.

But the sorry state of Mt Hope Secondary also requires a response from the Ministry of Finance on why money to facilitate not only repairs to Mt Hope but other schools similarly highlighted, has not been sourced for the Ministry of Education.

It should be clear to the technocrats in the Finance Ministry of Finance that ensuring all the nation’s schools are fit for learning to take place.

The Education Minister also needs to be clear on the money available to repair and maintain schools. On Monday, she referred to an allocation of $190 million for the Schools’ Repair Programme. On Tuesday, however, she said out of a budget of $5 billion, only $150 million is left for school repairs. This confusion is surprising for this minister.

If the Education Ministry is unable to ensure 100 per cent completion of school repairs by the end of the vacation periods, it needs to stop doing the same thing and expecting different results. One suggestion is for the ministry to partner with businesses in communities that have schools in critical need of repair. Another is for it to consider alternative accommodation for affected students until key remedial works are completed.

Whatever solution the ministry settles on, this should be the last year in which these complaints are heard. T&T is too advanced to allow these perennial infrastructural issues to impact the quality of this nation’s education.

The post Our school children deserve better first appeared on CNC3.