RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the new school term start­ed yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art laud­ed the re­pairs and emer­gency works car­ried out at over 271 schools na­tion­wide un­der the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme (VRP).

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Stew­art said most schools were ready for open­ing, as the min­istry had ex­e­cut­ed emer­gency re­pairs dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

Ear­li­er, Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath re­vealed that of the 271 schools on the of­fi­cial re­pair list, a to­tal of 169 re­quired emer­gency works, and al­most all were ready for yes­ter­day’s start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

“We had the op­por­tu­ni­ty, the first vice pres­i­dent, Zena Ra­matal­ly, and I, to ac­com­pa­ny the min­is­ter to a few schools last Fri­day, and we were im­pressed,” Stew­art said.

“Nev­er be­fore have so many schools been re­paired as far as I could re­mem­ber and suc­cess­ful­ly so. Af­ter last night, some work­ers were still at our schools. All the schools but 26 have been ful­ly com­plet­ed. Even with those 26, the in­for­ma­tion that we have is that schools can still progress, still op­er­ate with­out any hin­drance or dis­rup­tion.”

He cred­it­ed Dowlath for per­son­al­ly dri­ving the ini­tia­tive. “This is a his­to­ry-mak­ing mo­ment for the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme,” Stew­art said.

“To come in in April and in that short pe­ri­od of time mo­bilise and get these re­sults is a Her­culean achieve­ment. This min­is­ter is hands-on. He was a prac­ti­tion­er, a prin­ci­pal. He un­der­stands the op­er­a­tions of our schools, the role par­ents play, and he is in­clu­sive and en­gag­ing. We must ap­plaud him and his team for this fan­tas­tic job well done.”

Along­side in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ments, the Gov­ern­ment has in­tro­duced new school safe­ty mea­sures, de­ploy­ing spe­cial­ly trained “school-ori­ent­ed po­lice of­fi­cers” (SO­POs) to high-risk schools.

Stew­art said the NPTA met with both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to un­der­stand the pol­i­cy.

“We did meet re­cent­ly with DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin to get first­hand the process and the pol­i­cy guid­ing the in­ter­ven­tion and in­clu­sion of po­lice of­fi­cers,” Stew­art said.

“They are now called school-ori­ent­ed po­lice of­fi­cers, SOPO, and we want­ed to un­der­stand their roles and func­tions. Our in­for­ma­tion is that they will pro­vide an ad­di­tion­al lay­er of sup­port and not re­place the ex­ist­ing school ma­trix when it comes to dis­ci­pline and school vi­o­lence.”

Ac­cord­ing to Stew­art, SO­POs will be vis­i­ble both in­side and out­side schools.

“They are go­ing to be greet­ing stu­dents in ad­di­tion to the ex­ist­ing dis­ci­pline ma­trix in the school,” he ex­plained. “They will be there as stu­dents ar­rive, but of course, there will al­so be the need for pa­trols on the perime­ter of the school.”

Stew­art ad­mit­ted some par­ents may find it un­usu­al for their chil­dren to be greet­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers every morn­ing. How­ev­er, he said the de­ci­sion re­flect­ed the sever­i­ty of the dis­ci­pline chal­lenges schools face.

“If you look at the sus­pen­sions we’ve been hav­ing over the past three years, over 21,000, which means about 180 sus­pen­sions per week, that is as­tro­nom­i­cal in­deed,” he said.

“So­cial me­dia is al­ways abuzz with ac­tiv­i­ties of school in­dis­ci­pline and school vi­o­lence. Such mea­sures re­quire de­ci­sive and firm ac­tion. This is why we are where we are to­day.”

Still, he cau­tioned that the ini­tia­tive should not be per­ma­nent.

While wel­com­ing sup­port for dis­ci­pline, the NPTA pres­i­dent ar­gued that more in­vest­ment should be placed in ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion. He al­so re­mind­ed par­ents and teach­ers of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. He not­ed that while some par­ents strug­gled to pur­chase books, the NPTA al­so sup­port­ed fam­i­lies with vouch­ers to en­sure the funds were spent on school sup­plies.

How­ev­er, TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said there were sev­er­al prob­lems for yes­ter­day’s start of the year. He said Ce­dros Sec­ondary School did not re­open due to the in­com­plete re­pairs at the school, while To­co Sec­ondary School had to be dis­missed ear­ly be­cause of elec­tri­cal is­sues. He said they will al­so mon­i­tor San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary, where in­suf­fi­cient class­rooms were pos­ing a chal­lenge to the teach­ing/learn­ing process.

“The Mount Hope Sec­ondary School, with re­gards to clean­ers at the school, and the var­i­ous schools in To­ba­go that had chal­lenges on the first day of school, will al­so be mon­i­tored,” Lum Kin added.