Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Three Flana­gin Town RC School pupils-Jes­si­ca Guer­ra, Vic­to­ria James and An­to­nio Tay­lor-wrote their Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am yes­ter­day in the front pews of a church. Since 1933, over four gen­er­a­tions of Flana­gin Town res­i­dents have re­ceived their pri­ma­ry-school ed­u­ca­tion in the old church, perched on top of the Cen­tral Range. For over 79 years, these chil­dren and their fore­par­ents have at­tend­ed class­es in the church, which has a fine­ly craft­ed high wood­en ceil­ing and stone walls. These chil­dren nev­er knew what it felt like to be in a re­al school. They nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced air­con­di­tioned class­rooms, school fur­ni­ture, au­dio­vi­su­al fa­cil­i­ties or com­put­er rooms. The church does not have a recre­ation ground or class­rooms. The school's pop­u­la­tion is 65 pupils, while the church has just over 200 parish­ioners. Jes­si­ca, who spoke in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said she wants to be a lawyer.

She said she hoped one day the res­i­dents of Flana­gin Town would have their own school. "We have wait­ed long time for this. All I want­ed was to do my best. I want to make my par­ents hap­py and proud and I hope to pass for AS­JA Girls," she said, short­ly be­fore she wrote yes­ter­day's ex­am. The school's care­tak­er, Al­lan Man­nah, said he him­self had at­tend­ed school in the Flana­gin RC Church, 40 years ago. Man­nah said the orig­i­nal school build­ing was de­stroyed in a fire in 1933 and class­es were re­lo­cat­ed to the church. "Ever since I know my­self, the church was hous­ing the school. My grand­fa­ther used to come to school in this church," Man­nah said. Man­nah said every Fri­day, he has to re­arrange the class­rooms to make space for week­end ser­vices. "We have to re­move the black­boards, and re­arrange the desks. We have to place back the chairs in a row and we have to make sure that every­thing is ready for church on Sun­days," Man­nah said. He said on Sun­day evening, he re­turns to move back the fur­ni­ture to fa­cil­i­tate class­es. "Its hard work but we don't have a choice," Man­nah said.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er res­i­dent, Sa­hadeo Nand­lal, said it was im­prop­er to have class­es in the church. "A church is a sa­cred place yet the school has bazaars in the church and we have peo­ple drink­ing. This can­not be right," Nand­lal said. In­dra­daye Ma­haraj, who lives close to the church, said it was time for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to act. Ed­u­ca­tor Dr David Sub­ran, who first high­light­ed the is­sue to the T&T Guardian, said it was un­ac­cept­able that so many gen­er­a­tions of pupils had suf­fered. "Re­gard­less of the num­ber of pupils at­tend­ing, you can­not shift it, be­cause par­ents will find it be­yond their means to trav­el out­side of the area to send their chil­dren to school," Sub­ran said. He said the school was a fo­cal point of the com­mu­ni­ty, which he said would "regress in­to ig­no­rance if there is no school." Sub­ran called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to de­sign a school that is suit­able for the Flana­gin Town chil­dren. A school su­per­vi­sor, who had been in­ves­ti­gat­ing con­di­tions at the school, said yes­ter­day that dis­cus­sions were go­ing on about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of build­ing a new school. A par­cel of land has al­ready been iden­ti­fied. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said he had no in­for­ma­tion on the school but would look in­to the mat­ter.