Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), Wal­ter Stew­art, says the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry in­tends to rent the 300-plus chairs need­ed for stu­dents of South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary School (SE­POS), at least in the short term, as it is not the on­ly school in need of fur­ni­ture.

On Mon­day, stu­dents were placed on a ro­ta­tion sys­tem as there were not enough chairs to ac­com­mo­date ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 of them. Forms One and Two stu­dents were told to at­tend school on Tues­days and Thurs­days, while Forms Three to Five will at­tend class­es on Mon­day, Wednes­day, and Fri­day.

Stew­art said this would be a short-term mea­sure, as fur­ni­ture was or­dered for this aca­d­e­m­ic year but not de­liv­ered on time.

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and of­fi­cials at the min­istry were fu­tile.

Mean­while, for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly said SE­POS was not un­der ro­ta­tion dur­ing her tenure, and it is clear that not all schools were ready for re­open­ing.

“I un­der­stand that the min­is­ter was un­der ex­treme pres­sure to say all was well, and it may have led him to mis-speak in his quest to avoid pub­lic pres­sure,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to an em­ploy­ee and stu­dents of the school yes­ter­day, who con­firmed that Forms Three to Five were emp­ty, with no fur­ni­ture. The work­er said this of­ten caused prob­lems among stu­dents, as many spent class time stand­ing or search­ing for chairs.

She fur­ther ex­plained that the short­age al­so caused con­flict among the stu­dents. They claimed the fur­ni­ture short­age be­came an is­sue at least three years ago and has now be­come worse.