Stu­dents at St George’s Col­lege were dis­missed ear­ly yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a leak from the school’s air con­di­tion­ing unit, which led to a strong scent of re­frig­er­ant gas in the air.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred short­ly af­ter the morn­ing as­sem­bly when staff and stu­dents no­ticed the odour.

Out of con­cern for health and safe­ty, school of­fi­cials de­cid­ed to have stu­dents tak­en home by their par­ents.

While the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has not of­fi­cial­ly com­ment­ed on the in­ci­dent, par­ents who spoke to Guardian Me­dia said they were in­formed that school is ex­pect­ed to re­sume as nor­mal to­day.

St George’s Col­lege has faced in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges in the past, with re­ports of main­te­nance is­sues af­fect­ing the school’s op­er­a­tions.

At­tempts to reach TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful, as calls to his phone went unan­swered. - Ot­to Car­ring­ton