Kali­fa Clyne

Stu­dents of South East Port-of-Spain Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School put on their uni­forms yes­ter­day for the first time in three weeks. But in­stead of go­ing to school, along with an­gry par­ents, they went to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to protest.They went to ask the min­is­ter, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, when they would be al­lowed to con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion.They met par­ents of the Diego Mar­tin Boys' RC Pri­ma­ry School, who had al­ready gath­ered at the min­istry in St Clair, hold­ing plac­ards de­mand­ing the re­open­ing of their school.

The pro­test­ers warned the Gov­ern­ment that no school meant "no votes."Mario Di­az, the fa­ther of two chil­dren at Diego Mar­tin Boys' RC, said par­ents just want­ed to know what would be done re­gard­ing their chil­dren's ed­u­ca­tion.The Diego Mar­tin school has been closed since the first week in Sep­tem­ber be­cause of a pi­geon in­fes­ta­tion that had oc­curred since the last school year, when the school had been closed for sev­er­al weeks.

"They did try to erad­i­cate the pi­geons but what has hap­pened is that the pi­geons don't live on the com­pound but vis­it the com­pound dur­ing the day," Di­az said.He said pupils and teach­ers have been falling sick and have had to stay away from school.The school was closed two weeks ago but re­opened ear­li­er this week when work­ers tried to catch and ex­ter­mi­nate pi­geons fly­ing in­to the school grounds.They caught a kiskadee and no pi­geons, one par­ent said.

Par­ents and stu­dents from South East called on min­istry of­fi­cials to find al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments to ed­u­cate their chil­dren.Shanelle Dixon, moth­er of a Form Three stu­dent at South East, said it was the Gov­ern­ment's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to find oth­er arrange­ments to en­sure stu­dents were not af­fect­ed by the school's clo­sure.

"They have been home for the past three weeks and we had a meet­ing yes­ter­day with the PTA and the school of­fi­cials to ask them what would hap­pen with the stu­dents, but no­body could give us def­i­nite an­swers," said Dixon. "No­body has an an­swer. If we don't have prop­er ed­u­ca­tion, it will re­sult in more neg­a­tiv­i­ty in this coun­try."That school has been in a mess for years, we need them to fix the school but find oth­er arrange­ments for stu­dents."

At around 11 am, min­istry staff in­vit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from each school in­to a meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Ltd (EF­CL).Me­dia co-or­di­na­tor at the min­istry Yolan­da Car­val­ho-Morales said the min­istry had as­sured the Diego Mar­tin school that class­es would re­open next Tues­day."EF­CL had com­plet­ed 98 per cent of the work on the school. The prob­lem was that the pi­geons do not live in the school build­ing but in build­ings in the sur­round­ing area," Car­val­ho-Morales said.

As for South East Sec­ondary, Car­val­ho-Morales said the school would re­open on No­vem­ber 28.