Yvonne Webb

No build­ing, no school. This is the promise be­ing made by pres­i­dent of the El­swick Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School Par­ent/Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion Nichelle Sookdeo. Sookdeo said par­ents would not be send­ing their chil­dren back to the cramped Poole Riv­er Pres­by­ter­ian School which they had been shar­ing for the past four years. "We have been in­con­ve­nienced; our chil­dren have been se­vere­ly dis­ad­van­taged; we are not go­ing back there," she vowed.

Frus­trat­ed prin­ci­pal, Trevor Phillip, said on Mon­day, "The pa­tience of the teach­ers, par­ents and pupils has been se­vere­ly test­ed...It has reached a point where, if some­thing is not done im­me­di­ate­ly, the sit­u­a­tion will be­come very er­rat­ic. "I my­self have sim­ply run out of ways and means of pre­vent­ing protest ac­tion," he added. He ap­pealed to both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School Board to have the school com­plet­ed in time for the new school year in Sep­tem­ber. Phillip said work on a pre­fab­ri­cat­ed build­ing, which start­ed two years ago, has come to a com­plete stand­still.

There are con­flict­ing rea­sons for the de­lay, but Phillip urged the min­istry and the con­trac­tor, MTS, to work out the dif­fer­ences and ex­pe­dite the project. He said that in May, they got a com­mit­ment from the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment Co (EFMC) and the con­trac­tor that the build­ing would be ready for the new term. "We are in Ju­ly and we don't know what the sit­u­a­tion is...I am fed up cor­re­spond­ing with the Min­istry and call­ing the con­trac­tors to find out what is the de­lay," he said.

In spite of their chal­lenges, Phillip said the min­istry ex­pect­ed them to car­ry out their man­date just like any oth­er school that was equipped with state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ties. "When school re­opens we have to con­duct a school-based man­age­ment plan for the next five years," he said. "How are we to do this when we do not have a school to be­gin with?" he asked. The school pop­u­la­tion has dwin­dled from 124 to 59 over the past four years. On­ly nine stu­dents have been reg­is­tered for the new term.

In spite of this, all 12 stu­dents who wrote the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion ear­li­er this year, passed for sev­en and five-year schools. Calls made to MTS went unan­swered. So too, did calls to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer Ro­ry Subi­ah. Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Pres­by­ter­ian School Board Car­los Lakhan said he was aware that the project had stopped, but the EFMC was re­spon­si­ble for the build­ing.