Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite con­cerns from stake­hold­ers over the readi­ness of schools for Mon­day’s re­open­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­fi­dence that all schools would re­open.

More than 350 schools are un­der­go­ing re­pairs through the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS), with MTS CEO Nicholas Kan­hai say­ing 100 projects have al­ready been com­plet­ed.

Dowlath, speak­ing dur­ing a tour of schools which be­gan at Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege in Debe yes­ter­day, said al­though re­pairs had not yet been com­plet­ed at some schools, this would not af­fect their re­open­ing.

“We have fo­cused on wash­rooms, sew­er sys­tems, elec­tri­cal sys­tems, wa­ter stor­age, en­sur­ing that the roof and class­rooms are in­tact. That the schools have the right fur­ni­ture to en­sure that even if work has to con­tin­ue that schools can start; those ar­eas will be board­ed off, and safe­ty signs will be put in place,” he said.

Kan­hai, who ac­com­pa­nied the min­is­ter on the tour, said there were more than 800 schools, half of which were more than 50 years old.

Kan­hai added that these schools had been ne­glect­ed be­tween 2016 and 2024, and said the min­istry was work­ing with the Works De­part­ment, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Au­thor­i­ty and oth­er au­thor­i­ties to en­sure the schools are safe.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism over the de­lay in the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme, Dowlath said, “I know a lot of stake­hold­ers were won­der­ing why it did not start in Ju­ly. If you have to build a house or any build­ing, fill process ap­provals, elec­tri­cal, plumb­ing, the sew­er, and you have all of the statu­to­ry bod­ies to deal with.”

He as­sured that any out­stand­ing work would con­tin­ue with­out dis­rupt­ing class time.

Asked about Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School, where the PTA had raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about the state of the in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er is­sues, Kan­hai said the com­pa­ny was work­ing on the school.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about a lack of fur­ni­ture at some schools, the min­is­ter said, “We are work­ing to en­sure that we can as quick­ly as, be­cause you know you have the pro­cure­ment process, with the com­ing of the OPR and things like that, to fol­low to en­sure that we have the right fit.”

Par­vati Girls’ prin­ci­pal Dr Shar­da Ma­haraj-Ram­jat­tan said they de­mol­ished two build­ings last year and had re­quest­ed re­fur­bish­ment works through the Schools In­fra­struc­ture Man­age­ment Sys­tem.

She said the work be­gan four weeks ago and was near­ing com­ple­tion.

On con­cerns over the non-re­new­al of con­tracts for sup­port staff, in­clud­ing guid­ance coun­sel­lors, stu­dent sup­port per­son­nel and busi­ness op­er­a­tions as­sis­tants, Dowlath said the min­istry was re­struc­tur­ing the way sup­port ser­vices op­er­ate in schools.

The min­is­ter added that mi­grant stu­dents would be en­rolled in schools once they had the re­quire­ments for reg­is­tra­tion.

Dowlath al­so vis­it­ed con­struc­tion works on the com­pound of St Paul’s An­gli­can School, which will ac­com­mo­date In­fants, Stan­dard 1 and Stan­dard 2 stu­dents from Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School while re­fur­bish­ment works are car­ried out at that school.