Zahra Gor­don

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Zena Ra­matali wants the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to launch a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the re­pairs of schools. She made that call af­ter the Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) ad­vised its mem­bers not to turn out for class­es at more than 120 schools they claim are in need of ur­gent re­pairs. Ra­matali said the NPTA was dis­ap­point­ed with the min­istry's school re­pair sys­tem. She said the group had been call­ing for re-eval­u­a­tion of the sys­tem for more than a decade.

While Ra­matali ad­mit­ted that any loss of teach­ing time was un­for­tu­nate for stu­dents, she said the health and safe­ty of teach­ers and stu­dents need­ed to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion. "If the min­istry is look­ing at ex­cel­lence in ed­u­ca­tion they should have an on­go­ing re­pairs pro­gramme so they can pre­vent loss of teach­ing time. Our chil­dren are com­pet­ing and tak­ing very se­ri­ous ex­ams at the end of the year, and I'm hop­ing what­ev­er is go­ing on, the min­istry will get it right and things will be re­solved quick­ly," she said.

TTUTA said Princes Town East Sec­ondary and La Lune RC, Moru­ga are the two schools in the most crit­i­cal con­di­tion. How­ev­er, Raphael Samuel, pres­i­dent of the Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA), said he and oth­er mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive have ad­vised par­ents to keep their chil­dren at home on Mon­day. Samuel said the school had two ma­jor prob­lems-a mal­func­tion­ing sew­er sys­tem and fun­gus in­fes­ta­tion. He said two teach­ers fell ill last term and a class­room had to be closed. He said the Pa­lo Seco PTA and school of­fi­cials wrote to the min­istry in June about the is­sue but re­ceived no re­sponse. Samuel ac­cused the min­istry of vi­o­lat­ing the OSH Act by fail­ing to pro­vide a safe en­vi­ron­ment for teach­ers and stu­dents. Up to press time, calls to Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh's cell phone went unan­swered.