It’s been over two months since scrap iron thieves stole the wrought iron drain cov­ers from around the Spring­vale SDMS Pri­ma­ry School. And al­though the new term is set to be­gin in less than two weeks, the drains re­main ex­posed, a pos­si­ble haz­ard for pupils.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha gen­er­al sec­re­tary Vi­jay Ma­haraj said the thieves jumped over the fence, held up the se­cu­ri­ty guard and re­moved the steel drainage cov­ers a few weeks be­fore the scrap iron in­dus­try was shut down. No one was ar­rest­ed.

Ma­haraj said they now need help to re­place the drain cov­ers.

“We have made re­ports to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion MTS Di­vi­sion ask­ing that the cov­ers be re­placed. We want con­crete slabs with hooks to be used to cov­er the drain, rather than to use steel which can be re­moved by thieves,” Ma­haraj said.

He ex­plained that if the con­crete drain cov­ers are not in­stalled, the SDMS may have to use hard­wood slabs to cov­er the drains.

Sit­u­at­ed at Spring Vale, Mt Pleas­ant Road Clax­ton Bay, the school has over 200 pupils, most of whom come from sin­gle-par­ent homes.

De­spite all the chal­lenges this year, Ma­haraj said the school saw stu­dents move on­to Na­pari­ma Girls’ High, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Holy Faith Con­vent and Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Col­lege.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, part of the back­yard was cor­doned off to re­strict en­try to the area where the un­cov­ered drains were lo­cat­ed.

Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials were seen of­fload­ing new white­boards for the school, while a team from the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme was clean­ing the school com­pound.

A source said the school’s roof was bad­ly in need of re­place­ment. Last term, Stan­dard Five pupils had to be evac­u­at­ed be­cause of leaks from the roof. A green­house do­nat­ed by the Japan­ese Em­bassy was al­so in a state of di­lap­i­da­tion. School of­fi­cials are call­ing on cor­po­rate T&T to as­sist them in fix­ing the green­house and re­plac­ing the drainage cov­ers.

Mes­sages were sent to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­quest­ing whether the miss­ing drainage cov­ers will be re­placed in time for school. Guardian Me­dia is await­ing a re­sponse. Any­one want­i­ng to do­nate to help the school can con­tact 659-2769.