Fed up with the con­di­tions pri­ma­ry school chil­dren in Pe­nal are be­ing forced to face, Adri­an Gokool staged a one-man protest in front of the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

The 66-year-old grand­fa­ther from Siparia said he was sick and tired of see­ing pupils of St Do­minic’s Ro­man Catholic Pri­ma­ry School be­ing cramped in­to the Pe­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on La­choos Road un­der “un­san­i­tary con­di­tions”.

As such, he is call­ing on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene and build a new school for the chil­dren.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment, which was not in ses­sion, Gokool said, “The is­sue at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre is that you don’t know what is class one, class two or class three. Toi­let for teach­ers is a prob­lem. Toi­lets for the girls and boys in the school is a prob­lem. There aren’t enough fans. There’s no air con­di­tion. The chil­dren can’t even get a lit­tle breeze, they’re sti­fling. The com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre was not built for a school. I be­lieve it is un­san­i­tary.”

He added, “Eight go­ing on nine years now, I’ve been watch­ing a school with no­body in it and the chil­dren in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre un­der all kinds of con­di­tions. They keep say­ing they’re build­ing the school for nine years now but noth­ing has hap­pened … I am call­ing on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, I am call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance (Colm Im­bert), and I’m call­ing on the Ro­man Catholic (Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don) please build a new school. Re­mem­ber if you sti­fle chil­dren they will come out hus­tlers, ban­dits, killers. But, if you ed­u­cate chil­dren, they will come out as fu­ture lead­ers. Ed­u­ca­tion is the key.”

Last month, there were fiery protests along La­choos Road where par­ents and res­i­dents in the area squared off with po­lice over the same is­sue.

This re­sult­ed in one per­son be­ing ar­rest­ed.

Coun­cil­lor for Pe­nal Shan­ty Boodram said Gokool’s voice should not be ig­nored, as he is rep­re­sent­ing all those who are suf­fer­ing in the area.

She claimed the en­tire roof at the pri­ma­ry school was dam­aged years ago and it’s one of the rea­sons for its clo­sure. The roof of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre was al­so dam­aged re­cent­ly and had to be fixed be­fore the chil­dren could re­turn. Pupils are al­so be­ing housed at the St Do­minic’s RC Church dur­ing school hours, she said.

The coun­cil­lor added that res­i­dents in the area can­not use the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre or the church to host oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties any more and they too are com­plain­ing about the space.

Boodram said, “Re­cent­ly, the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre’s roof col­lapsed and they had to do ren­o­va­tion work ... The chil­dren need a new school. How long do they have to wait? They are on­ly mak­ing promis­es but the min­istry is not do­ing any­thing.

“Every sin­gle year the min­istry al­lo­cates mon­ey for ed­u­ca­tion. There is noth­ing put to­wards the St Do­minic’s RC. No mon­ey. It’s not even a big school, so it can be done. The peo­ple of Pe­nal are tax­pay­ers too. It’s been more than eight years so there were pupils who went through the en­tire pri­ma­ry school lev­el with­out be­ing in a prop­er school build­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly on the mat­ter but up to yes­ter­day evening no re­sponse was re­ceived.