Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

A month af­ter teach­ers at the New Grant An­gli­can School stopped at­tend­ing class­es be­cause of health and safe­ty con­cerns, mem­bers of the school's Par­ent Teacher's As­so­ci­a­tion held a mas­sive protest out­side the school yes­ter­day.

The protest in­clud­ed pupils in uni­form and Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath who said he had joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the par­ents.

The school's Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) pres­i­dent Clive Bar­nett said the cur­rent school build­ing was some 70 years old.

"We have to ad­dress the fact that the build­ing is a wood­en build­ing over 70 years old, a lot of the ma­son­ry done on the build­ing is what they call San Fer­nan­do grav­el, so it's not very strong," Bar­nett said. "There is plas­ter falling off of columns right now, there are main beams sep­a­rat­ing.

"The min­istry did send some­body in 2014 and they did some re­pairs but the prob­lems are pop­ping up again and they are get­ting worse. It is al­so ter­mite-rid­den."

Bar­nett said last month, teach­ers walked off the com­pound as Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty of­fi­cials deemed the build­ing un­safe.

"OSH of­fi­cials came in and did a vi­su­al analy­sis about three weeks ago and rec­om­mend­ed an en­gi­neer come and do an analy­sis of the build­ing. The teach­ers have not come out to class­es since May 10."

He said with na­tion­al tests for the 196 stu­dents start­ing next Tues­day, par­ents are frus­trat­ed and wor­ried.

"This is a show of the frus­tra­tion of the par­ents. Since May 10 we have been try­ing to get to the Min­istry through the prin­ci­pal to get so­lu­tions, short term and long term. We need these chil­dren to go back to school yes­ter­day, this sit­u­a­tion has been ex­ist­ing for quite awhile.

"It is not an overnight prob­lem and the prin­ci­pal has been pre­sent­ing it to the min­istry and to the board to get it rec­ti­fied and noth­ing is be­ing done. It has come to this now." Padarath al­so spoke, call­ing on Ju­nior Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Lovell Fran­cis, to show sym­pa­thy to­wards his con­stituents who al­so go to the school.

"About 50 per cent of the school pop­u­la­tion is from the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy," Padarath said. "I am call­ing on the min­is­ter to show some com­pas­sion for his own con­stituents and rec­ti­fy the prob­lems fac­ing this school. These chil­dren need their ed­u­ca­tion."