Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

All schools in To­ba­go were opened for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year yes­ter­day, de­spite mi­nor re­pairs still to take place at some of them.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Or­lan­do Kerr had as­sured that the schools would be ready for re­open­ing de­spite the late start to the school re­pair pro­gramme.

He cred­it­ed the dai­ly-paid cadre for work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly over the last few weeks to get the in­sti­tu­tions pre­pared.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kerr re­it­er­at­ed that main­te­nance work would con­tin­ue through­out term one as the di­vi­sion changes its ap­proach to main­te­nance.

“The scopes are very long. There are so many mi­nor things, so we will fix that by do­ing year-round re­pairs,” he said.

He ex­plained work will take place on week­ends and af­ter school, with the ma­jor re­pairs to be un­der­tak­en when school clos­es in De­cem­ber.

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA)To­ba­go Of­fi­cer De­on Ro­driguez, who a few weeks ago ex­pressed alarm about the pace of re­pair works, said the union was sat­is­fied that the en­vi­ron­ment was safe for both stu­dents and teach­ers to re­turn.

“It is not a per­fect sys­tem. Be­ing a re­spon­si­ble union and a re­spon­si­ble of­fi­cer, my aim is that the schools are open­ing in a safe en­vi­ron­ment. Yes, there are schools that need to be paint­ed; there are schools where works are need­ed where doors are con­cerned, but it doesn’t threat­en the health and safe­ty of those on the com­pound,” he said.

In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view, Ro­driguez iden­ti­fied the roof at St Patrick’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School as be­ing in dire need of re­pair as it was ter­mite-in­fest­ed. How­ev­er, most par­ents drop­ping off their chil­dren at the school yes­ter­day were un­aware of the sit­u­a­tion.

One par­ent, a past St Patrick’s stu­dent, not­ed the school had changed very lit­tle since she at­tend­ed. She said ex­pan­sion was nec­es­sary as there was on­ly one class for each stan­dard.

An­oth­er par­ent said his main con­cern was stu­dents not be­ing al­lowed to en­ter the class­rooms un­less a teacher had ar­rived on the com­pound.

He said stu­dents who were dropped off ear­ly had to stay out­side in the sun for too long.

At Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School, a teacher told Guardian Me­dia there was in­suf­fi­cient fur­ni­ture at the school.

She added that a few teach­ers had re­signed but were nev­er re­placed.

At Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary, par­ents are still hope­ful that the THA promise of a new school would ma­te­ri­alise in the near fu­ture.

How­ev­er, their pri­or­i­ty was a safe and healthy learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment for their chil­dren.

Par­ent Tashay Williams said she took mat­ters in­to her own hands af­ter ob­serv­ing the con­di­tion of her son’s Stan­dard One class­room a few weeks ago.

She said, “At first I was a bit con­cerned be­cause when we came for ori­en­ta­tion, I re­alised the class was in a mess.

“The desk was rusty; the chairs were rusty. A few par­ents, as well as my­self and my hus­band, chipped in, paint­ed the chairs, and paint­ed up the class­room to make it more com­fort­able and ac­com­mo­dat­ing for the kids.”

She said her on­ly oth­er wor­ry was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bul­ly­ing, but she felt con­fi­dent that the staff could han­dle that is­sue.

“So far, every­thing has been good. The ori­en­ta­tion from teach­ers has been com­fort­ing and wel­com­ing,” she said.