Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day yes­ter­day, Preysal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School pupils were un­able to at­tend class­es be­cause of a sew­er prob­lem on the com­pound.

Par­ents com­plained that for more than five years, the chil­dren have been housed at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre be­cause of the di­lap­i­dat­ed state of the school build­ing. They said it was not the first time there were sew­er prob­lems.

Con­struc­tion of a new school start­ed in 2014 dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, but came to a halt soon af­ter.

Par­ent Can­dace Bal­li­ram­s­ingh com­plained: “This is a hor­ri­ble and un­ac­cept­able sit­u­a­tion be­cause chil­dren are cramped up and clus­tered in a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and they ac­cus­tom to out­side be­ing in the play area. All of these things they don’t have.”

She called on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly to en­sure work re­sumes on the new school.

“We need a prop­er school for our chil­dren, please, be­cause they are be­ing de­prived of their ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

Near­by res­i­dents al­so com­plained that they have been de­nied use of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and the school com­pound is now a haven for snakes and crim­i­nals, pos­ing se­ri­ous health and se­cu­ri­ty risks.
Res­i­dent Sookdeo Sar­ran wants a gal­vanise fence, which he said is ob­struct­ing the view of the in­side of the com­pound, re­moved.
An­oth­er res­i­dent said once they’re giv­en per­mis­sion, they will re­move the fence them­selves and main­tain the prop­er­ty.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said sew­er prob­lems in schools are com­mon and dealt with in the short­est pos­si­ble time. She ex­plained that con­struc­tion of the school start­ed in 2014 and the Gov­ern­ment un­der­took it with­out fund­ing. She said this caused con­struc­tion of var­i­ous schools to grind to a halt.
Not­ing that the to­tal es­ti­mat­ed cost for com­ple­tion of these schools was $4 bil­lion, the Min­is­ter said Gov­ern­ment has been in­cre­men­tal­ly com­plet­ing them in phas­es. She said 13 were com­plet­ed in 2021 at a cost of $400 mil­lion, and sev­en more are be­ing com­plet­ed at a cost of $420 mil­lion. The Preysal school is among those still to be com­plet­ed.
Gads­by-Dol­ly did not in­di­cate when work might re­sume on that school.