Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More than two dozen schools start­ed over a decade ago by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment re­main aban­doned—van­dalised, with dam­aged walls, miss­ing roofs, and over­grown com­pounds where an­i­mals graze and, in some cas­es, mar­i­jua­na is cul­ti­vat­ed.

Among the un­fin­ished schools are Re­form Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School and the ad­join­ing Re­form Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre in Gas­par­il­lo.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the schools on Fri­day, res­i­dents called for com­ple­tion, say­ing their chil­dren need a prop­er school.

Res­i­dent Dood­nath Bas­deo said con­struc­tion of the pri­ma­ry school be­gan in 2013 and was 95 per cent com­plete, while the EC­CE Cen­tre reached 80 per cent com­ple­tion when the PNM took of­fice in 2015. He said the build­ings have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the past nine years and are now used by crim­i­nals.

“Some­one was grow­ing mar­i­jua­na in there a few years ago,” he said, point­ing to the black­ened build­ings. He not­ed that res­i­dents held sev­er­al protests dur­ing the terms of Dr Lovell Fran­cis and Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, but the schools were nev­er com­plet­ed, and over 150 stu­dents now at­tend school at the near­by Shiv Mandir.

“Now that the gov­ern­ment has changed I hope this school can be opened so our chil­dren can get a prop­er place to study. Right now they are in the mandir and three class­rooms cramped. One class is un­der a tent and when rain falls they have to go in­side. It not right for them,” Bas­deo ex­plained.

He said peo­ple stripped the un­fin­ished build­ings of elec­tri­cal fix­tures and oth­er ma­te­ri­als af­ter con­struc­tion halt­ed in 2015.

Mean­while, a fish­er­man iden­ti­fied as Y.T. crit­i­cised the ne­glect and said the build­ings should have been com­plet­ed long ago.

“This is wastage. I feel that politi­cians should stop play­ing with chil­dren's lives. These chil­dren de­serve a prop­er place to study,” he said.

In Pe­nal, the in­com­plete Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege and Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege—mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar projects—have al­so fall­en in­to ru­in. Van­dals re­moved steel sheet­ing, gal­vanised roof­ing, and oth­er met­al ma­te­ri­als. Bush now cov­ers the com­pound. A ven­dor who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said theft and van­dal­ism con­tin­ue.

A source said the ex­ist­ing col­lege low­er down Clarke Road re­mains over­crowd­ed and lacks key fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing a mul­ti­pur­pose hall, spe­cialised labs, a mu­sic room, and an art stu­dio.

“We have been wait­ing for the new school for years now,” the source said.

Busi­ness­man Vi­jay Ra­mai said the Rousil­lac Hin­du School is an­oth­er project left in­com­plete.

“I am dis­ap­point­ed that the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment nev­er saw it fit to cap­i­talise on the tremen­dous in­vest­ment that the past UNC gov­ern­ment made. This school was 80 per cent com­plet­ed and I would hope that both schools could be com­plet­ed so that our chil­dren can ben­e­fit,” Ra­mai said.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said these schools, left in­com­plete un­der the PNM, will now be fin­ished un­der his lead­er­ship.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Dowlath said he and his team are re­view­ing the full list of un­fin­ished schools and will be­gin site vis­its next week.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion staff are look­ing at the per­cent­age com­ple­tion of those un­fin­ished schools, and we're al­so look­ing at the da­ta for the de­mand for the schools in a par­tic­u­lar area. That will set the pri­or­i­ty for the com­ple­tion and re­open­ing of the schools,” he said.

He said some schools are be­tween 80 and 95 per cent com­plete and gave an as­sur­ance they will be fin­ished.

“And as we go for­ward, I want to as­sure the pop­u­la­tion that we will en­sure that all chil­dren have a place in a school,” he added.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the PNM gov­ern­ment com­plet­ed all projects in phas­es. She said 20 schools were fin­ished at a cost of about $800 mil­lion, and work had con­tin­ued.

“The UNC gov­ern­ment will now have to do what it failed to do in 2010–2015: they must find and al­lo­cate the fund­ing to com­plete the out­stand­ing schools, which will cost over 2 bil­lion dol­lars, ac­cord­ing to the last es­ti­mates,” Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She added, “This can­not be found in the an­nu­al bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion—it will have to be a sep­a­rate fund­ing source ded­i­cat­ed to fin­ish­ing these projects.”