Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment of Diego Mar­tin (North East) Colm Im­bert has promised fund­ing for schools in ur­gent need of re­pairs.

Speak­ing at the of­fi­cial open­ing of the Belle Vue Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) cen­tre in St James on Wednes­day, Im­bert said this is a press­ing is­sue be­cause ed­u­ca­tion is a very im­por­tant mat­ter.

“We have prob­lems in our schools, our schools are old. A lot of the schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go are 50, 60 years, some of them 100 years old. A build­ing is not sup­posed to last for 100 years. I wish to give the as­sur­ance that what­ev­er is re­quired in all of these schools, where you have is­sues be­cause of the age of the school, prob­lems with roofs, prob­lems with the elec­tri­cal and plumb­ing sys­tems, and so on, you will get the full sup­port of the min­istry of fi­nance,” Im­bert said.

He not­ed that the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor is a top pri­or­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment.

“Since our fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion is a lit­tle bet­ter, ed­u­ca­tion is very im­por­tant, al­most num­ber one in pri­or­i­ties, in terms of fund­ing,” he added.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who al­so spoke at the open­ing, agreed this is an is­sue of con­cern.

She said too many of these is­sues can pose a threat to chil­dren.

“It is an up­hill task every day, just to en­sure schools do not close. If we do not treat it with that lev­el of ur­gency and ef­fi­cien­cy, there will be many schools closed, and many chil­dren that will not get the ben­e­fit of their ed­u­ca­tion, and that is ab­solute­ly un­ten­able, we do not want that,” she not­ed.

Gads­by-Dol­ly added: “A school clos­ing is a crit­i­cal thing be­cause if a school is closed, we can’t do our jobs. School main­te­nance, not just con­struc­tion, but main­tain­ing the plant is al­so very im­por­tant, and Min­is­ter Im­bert un­der­stands that, which is why he would say let us get the mon­ey to where we need it, and we cer­tain­ly need it to main­tain our cadre of schools so that our chil­dren do not miss school days.”

Re­cent­ly, St George’s Col­lege was tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Val­sayn Cam­pus due to is­sues with its roof, and in Oc­to­ber, a con­crete slab fell on a stu­dent of San Juan North Sec­ondary on the com­pound. The launch of the Belle Vue EC­CE came for the com­mu­ni­ty af­ter 31 years of wait­ing.

Im­bert said the project had been in the works for a long time and kept get­ting de­layed due to the changes in ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Al­so at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny were the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Moris-Julien and di­rec­tor of EC­CE Car­ol Bhag­wandin.