Concrete louvres are being installed at the South East Port-of-Spain Secondary school (SEPOS) months after a stray bullet fired from a gun by men involved in gang warfare in the area entered a classroom.
At a news conference on Friday, Minister of Education Anthony Garcia identified the school as being among three which will not be opened at the beginning of the new term next week. The other schools labelled as “a challenge, even an embarrassment to the ministry” were the Couva West Secondary School and the Edinburgh Government Primary school.
The Education Minister said over 77 million dollars had been spent on repair works last year, however, due to the scope of work at the three schools, more time was needed to complete the undertakings.
As he narrowed in on SEPOS, he said safety was paramount, “ as we are aware, towards the end of last year teachers were in uproar over the fact that a bullet entered the classroom much to the fear of students and teachers and as a result teachers in defence of their safety decided they were not going to work under these conditions”.
Garcia said in addressing the concerns at the schools severe measures had to be taken, “the work that the teachers and stakeholders have identified is taking much longer than expected and we have been asked to give the contractors an additional two weeks so it will be ready.”
The ministry’s permanent secretary Kurt Meyer said the facility had been hardened to ensure the school population’s wellbeing “basically what we’ve done is put concrete louvres on the north and eastern blocks and fourth, third and second floor because the north block is where the projectile came from.”
November’s shooting left students, teachers and parents paralyzed by fear. Classes were discontinued for a period and resumed after the education ministry beefed up security around the compound as an interim measure to boost security. Representatives from the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association condemned the violence and lamented it was not the first report they had received about how dangerous the surrounding area of the school was.
Meanwhile, following the recent decriminalization of marijuana, Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan warned that the penalties for a student caught in possession of the drug on a school compound will be more severe, “with respect to issues related to drugs, currently, if students are caught with illegal drugs the police is contacted and therefore while the consequences might be a bit different now, the process will not change, so we have clear guidelines outlined in our school code of conduct and therefore the process will continue”.