Sascha Wil­son

Teach­ers of St Bene­dict's Col­lege in La Ro­maine have walked off the job com­plain­ing of un­san­i­tary con­di­tions. This is the fifth school in?south Trinidad where class­es have been sus­pend­ed since the start of the new school term last Mon­day. Vice-pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Da­vanand Sinanan said the teach­ers had been com­plain­ing for some time about pi­geon drop­pings, but their com­plaints had been falling on deaf ears. "The teach­ers be­came so fed up that they em­barked on this very dras­tic move. They de­cid­ed to re­move them­selves for health and safe­ty rea­sons," he said of the ac­tion on Thurs­day. One par­ent said they were not told when to send their chil­dren back to school. "All they said was to lis­ten to me­dia re­ports." A par­ent at South Oropouche RC School said the school would re­main closed for the week.

She said the au­thor­i­ties had rec­ti­fied the prob­lem with the pi­geon drop­pings and were re­plac­ing rot­ting floor­ing boards. Yes­ter­day par­ents of San Fer­nan­do Boys' RC School protest­ed out­side the school, which re­mains closed be­cause of faulty elec­tri­cal wiring. The Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School will al­so re­main closed for an­oth­er three weeks be­cause of a mys­te­ri­ous air­borne fun­gus. Class­es al­so did not re­sume at the San­ta Flo­ra Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School yes­ter­day. A par­ent said re­pairs were be­ing done and the school might open on Thurs­day. Par­ents have been com­plain­ing that the school's struc­ture is un­sound, the roof is leak­ing, the drains are clogged and there are cracks along the dri­ve­way. Mean­while class­es at the Mara­bel­la An­gli­can Boys' and Girls' pri­ma­ry schools re­sumed yes­ter­day af­ter re­pairs on the build­ings were com­plet­ed. The work that was re­quest­ed were not com­plet­ed, but the work done thus far was ac­cept­able.