Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Class­es at St Bene­dict’s Col­lege in La Ro­maine will re­sume on Mon­day, sub­ject to clear­ance from the Fire Ser­vice and OS­HA, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

This fol­lows Wednes­day’s fire in the school’s au­di­to­ri­um, which de­stroyed the store and dra­ma room. Fire of­fi­cials had said that pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest­ed that the fire may not have been ac­ci­den­tal.

The min­istry con­firmed that a for­mal po­lice re­port was filed at the La Ro­maine Po­lice Post, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions will con­tin­ue un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. A re­li­able source told Guardian Me­dia that 15 stu­dents were re­cent­ly sus­pend­ed for acts of in­dis­ci­pline, and the wa­ter lines were van­dalised.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry stat­ed that the fire broke out af­ter 12 pm, but the school’s main struc­ture re­mained in­tact.

In ac­cor­dance with the school’s Emer­gency Evac­u­a­tion Pro­to­col, the min­istry said teach­ers used the pub­lic ad­dress sys­tem to in­struct all stu­dents to pro­ceed to the des­ig­nat­ed muster point at St Bene­dict’s RC Church.

The evac­u­a­tion was ex­e­cut­ed ef­fi­cient­ly, with all 525 stu­dents and 45 staff mem­bers ac­count­ed for.

While no in­juries or ca­su­al­ties were re­port­ed, the min­istry stat­ed that the am­bu­lance ser­vices re­mained on stand­by through­out the in­ci­dent. School was dis­missed ear­ly, and par­ents and guardians were prompt­ly in­formed.

In the re­lease, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath was quot­ed as say­ing, “The safe­ty and well-be­ing of every stu­dent re­mains our high­est pri­or­i­ty.” He stat­ed that fol­low­ing the fire, all nec­es­sary mea­sures were tak­en to en­sure that stu­dents were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed, and they are work­ing close­ly with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to re­store nor­mal op­er­a­tions.

Par­ents, staff, and the pub­lic were re­as­sured that every step is be­ing tak­en to safe­guard the chil­dren and their learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment. The Min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion is ex­pect­ed to fa­cil­i­tate a coun­selling ses­sion for all staff mem­bers to­mor­row and stu­dents up­on the re­sump­tion of class­es.

The min­istry an­tic­i­pat­ed that there would be min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to the aca­d­e­m­ic sched­ule and em­pha­sised that they re­main com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all stu­dents and staff as in­ves­ti­ga­tions pro­ceed.