Education Minister Anthony Garcia is dismissing as “untrue” reports that 27 schools remain closed following the August 21 earthquake.
Garcia told the T&T Guardian yesterday only five schools remained closed and all efforts are being made to ensure that those schools are opened as early as this week in some instances.
Minister in the Ministry of Education Lovell Francis, who also spoke with the T&T Guardian, said the Guayaguayare RC School will be opened today while classes at San Juan North will start by tomorrow and classes will resume at the Barrackpore East and West Secondary Schools by Wednesday.
Francis said the Santa Maria RC School will be temporarily moved to his constituency office.
Repairs are being done to the St Benedicts College to ensure that teachers resume duty soon and the Forest Reserve Anglican is to be temporarily relocated.
Francis said most of the schools damaged in the earthquake are in operation and areas “deemed dangerous” by the Ministry of Works and OSHA have been “cordoned off.”
With regard to the St Mary’s Government School, he said there is a sewer issue and that will be solved by changing the line.
Meanwhile, Garcia has hailed the success of the second year of the Laventille/Morvant Special project which he said was intended to list the spirit of students, parents and teachers in the Laventille-Morvant area.
The prize giving was held last Friday and Garcia said from all indications “the project has been very successful.”
The minister said curriculum officers in the Ministry of Education, who have responsibility for reading specialists and Mathematics, have examined students in the primary schools in the area “and they have reported an improvement in students in both reading and Mathematics.”
The programme was also used to promote discipline and Garcia said, “This is the area in which I am most pleased. As a result of this we do not have the high levels of indiscipline that characterises that area.”
Garcia said as part of the initiative children are encouraged to be catalysts for change.