Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art praised Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath for what he called a “Her­culean achieve­ment” in school re­pairs ahead of the start of the new term.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew this morn­ing, Stew­art said he and NPTA first vice pres­i­dent Zena Ra­matali ac­com­pa­nied Dowlath on vis­its to sev­er­al schools last week and were im­pressed by the scale and suc­cess of the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme (VRP).

“This is a his­to­ry-mak­ing mo­ment for the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme be­cause nev­er be­fore have so many schools been re­paired, as far as I can re­mem­ber, and suc­cess­ful­ly so,” Stew­art said.

He said 271 schools were on the re­pair list, with an­oth­er 169 on an emer­gency list. By last night, work­ers were still on-site, but all ex­cept 26 schools had been com­plet­ed.

Even for the 26 schools where re­pairs re­main un­fin­ished, Stew­art said class­es could con­tin­ue “with­out any hin­drance or dis­rup­tion” be­cause the out­stand­ing work was mi­nor.

He cred­it­ed Dowlath for lead­ing the ef­fort de­spite on­ly tak­ing of­fice ear­li­er this year.

“This min­is­ter is hands-on. This min­is­ter was a prac­ti­tion­er, a for­mer prin­ci­pal. He un­der­stands the op­er­a­tions of our schools… He’s en­gag­ing, he’s in­clu­sive, and he’s get­ting the job done,” Stew­art said. “What more do you re­al­ly want in a min­is­ter to be able to pro­pel the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go at this time? So again, hats off to Min­is­ter Dowlath.”

Stew­art added that the min­is­ter is open to crit­i­cism and will­ing to en­gage all stake­hold­ers “for the best in­ter­est of the chil­dren.”