Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pal As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai says schools are fac­ing an out­break of ring­worm and hand, foot and mouth dis­ease and the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry is ig­nor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.He made the state­ment in a me­dia re­lease on Mon­day, in which he called on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh to deal with the crit­i­cal short­age of ba­sic sup­plies at T&T's pri­ma­ry schools.

Doo­d­hai said schools are func­tion­ing with­out the avail­abil­i­ty of es­sen­tial, ba­sic sup­plies such as toi­let pa­per, clean­ing ma­te­ri­als, garbage bags and sta­tionery, in­clud­ing white­board mark­ers.The dis­eases, he said, "are preva­lent, a sit­u­a­tion which can on­ly be ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the present sit­u­a­tion/cri­sis, brought on by the in­ac­tion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion."

Doo­d­hai de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as "dis­tress­ing" since, he said, "schools have not re­ceived any school sup­plies from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion since Sep­tem­ber 2011."He called on the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) state their po­si­tion on this is­sue. He said in many schools, par­ents are be­ing un­fair­ly bur­dened as they are be­ing asked to con­tribute school sup­plies or mon­ey to help al­le­vi­ate this prob­lem.

NAPSPA said it re­fused to be­lieve that the NPTA can be hap­py and silent in a sit­u­a­tion where "our chil­dren are made vul­ner­a­ble to var­i­ous dan­gers." Doo­d­hai said be­fore 2011 school sup­plies were re­ceived in 2009.He is call­ing on the min­istry to im­me­di­ate­ly pro­vide the much-need­ed ba­sic sup­plies to schools by the end of this week.

Doo­d­hai said the as­so­ci­a­tion will be host­ing a meet­ing of all pri­ma­ry schools prin­ci­pals to­mor­row at Thick Vil­lage Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Siparia, to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion and to de­cide whether schools will be deemed fit for re­open­ing af­ter the East­er va­ca­tion."Let us not com­pro­mise the safe­ty, health and ed­u­ca­tion of our pri­ma­ry school co­hort," he said."The as­so­ci­a­tion de­mands ac­tion by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion now."

Doo­d­hai said the sit­u­a­tion is fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the fact that pri­ma­ry schools do not re­ceive any fund­ing as sec­ondary schools do, but rather they "de­pend sole­ly on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for the pro­vi­sion of these sup­plies in or­der to con­tin­ue its op­er­a­tions."He said at a De­cem­ber 18, 2012, meet­ing with Gopeesingh, the sit­u­a­tion was raised as a mat­ter of ur­gency.

He said the Di­rec­tor of Fi­nance and Ac­counts said schools did not re­ceive sup­plies for fis­cal 2011/2012 be­cause of a short­age of staff, and sup­plies will be de­liv­ered by the end of Jan­u­ary 2013.Doo­d­hai said the as­so­ci­a­tion wrote to per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry Kath­leen Thomas on Feb­ru­ary 1, in­form­ing her about "the dire need for crit­i­cal sup­plies."

The as­so­ci­a­tion, he said, gave an un­der­tak­ing to wait un­til Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 22, 2013.How­ev­er, he said, noth­ing has changed."NAPSPA con­sid­ers this lack of a prompt re­sponse by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for emer­gency sup­plies as cal­lous, in­hu­mane, in­sen­si­tive and con­temp­tu­ous of the needs of the pri­ma­ry schools," he stat­ed.