Af­ter sev­er­al years of protests dat­ing back to 2016, the long-await­ed Ra­mai Trace SDMS Hin­du School in Debe has fi­nal­ly been com­plet­ed and com­mis­sioned at a cost of $24 mil­lion.

Ex­press­ing her joy about the com­ple­tion, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said every week, of­fi­cials “look at these schools and we look at these projects and we count down with ea­ger an­tic­i­pa­tion the time when we can tick that box and say that we have com­plet­ed it.”

The min­is­ter said the school was a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of “what is the best of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” and has been out­fit­ted with “ten class­rooms, 16 spe­cial­ty rooms, a di­ag­nos­tic test­ing room, a com­put­er room, a sci­ence room and an art and craft room.”

She said the Ra­mai Trace SDMS Hin­du School was one of four schools that would be com­mis­sioned this month.

Dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing, the min­is­ter and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal praised each oth­er for their ef­forts in the school be­ing opened.

“And I want to tell him (Mooni­lal) that this is what rep­re­sen­ta­tion is about. It is about ad­vo­cat­ing for the needs of your com­mu­ni­ties and your con­stituen­cies and Dr Mooni­lal cer­tain­ly made all ef­forts to en­sure that this project did not get stalled and we are here to­day,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

Ear­li­er, Mooni­lal men­tioned the nu­mer­ous protests for the school over the years, but he thanked the min­is­ter for be­ing “ex­treme­ly ac­ces­si­ble and very open and af­fa­ble in re­ceiv­ing our ques­tions and protests.”

Not­ing the school has been a long time com­ing, Mooni­lal told the min­is­ter he has to change a set­ting on his com­put­er be­cause every time the Par­lia­ment opens in Sep­tem­ber, there is a pro­gramme that sets the first ques­tion to be filed as “When is the Ra­mai Trace School go­ing to be opened?”

The MP al­so thanked par­ents and pupils, both present and for­mer, for en­dur­ing the hard­ships they would have faced. He an­tic­i­pat­ed that go­ing for­ward there would be chal­lenges sourc­ing equip­ment, but he called on mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to al­so lend sup­port to the school.

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so as­sured arrange­ments were be­ing put in place for the pupils and teach­ers of the Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School which was de­stroyed by fire last week.

She said, “We are work­ing out the arrange­ments now, try­ing to look at dif­fer­ent op­tions and what’s avail­able for them, but of course the min­istry is go­ing to en­sure that there is ed­u­ca­tion con­ti­nu­ity. But once we have that fi­nalise we will com­mu­ni­cate to the prin­ci­pal and the par­ents.”

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to the Mara­bel­la An­gli­can School, she said ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials have been hav­ing some dif­fi­cul­ties with the con­trac­tor, but she said the school was al­most com­plet­ed.

“I can as­sure the par­ents and the stu­dents that we are work­ing very hard to get that school,” the min­is­ter said.