With phys­i­cal school ten­ta­tive­ly card­ed to re­open from Oc­to­ber 1, par­ents of pupils at­tend­ing Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to fix a bro­ken bridge in front of their school as soon as pos­si­ble, be­fore some­one gets hurt.

Since the bridge col­lapsed on Sep­tem­ber 3, staff mem­bers have been park­ing their ve­hi­cles on the SS Erin Road be­fore walk­ing 200 me­tres over the pre­car­i­ous bridge to get to the com­pound. The school has 522 pupils and 34 teach­ers.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the bridge for a sec­ond time in two weeks on Mon­day, the bridge sunk even fur­ther down.

A gap­ing hole was al­so seen on one side.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the school’s PTA Ash­ley Mark told Guardian Me­dia that it was risky to have Form One stu­dents cross­ing the bridge to reg­is­ter for class­es.

The prin­ci­pal De­vanand Sinanan arranged for Form One reg­is­tra­tion to be done at a near­by school on Mon­day.

“The prin­ci­pal had to load the pho­to­copy­ing ma­chine, stu­dent fold­ers in his car and then dri­ve to Pa­lo Seco Pri­ma­ry school where they set up an of­fice in the lob­by to fa­cil­i­tate reg­is­tra­tion,” Mark said.

She added, “Our chil­dren have been home since last year March. Now that we are on the verge of re­turn­ing to school, made the sac­ri­fice to vac­ci­nate our chil­dren, we are now faced with an­oth­er sit­u­a­tion where the bridge is un­fit for use.”

Residents and parents walk over a bridge leading to Palo Seco Secondary School which is on the verge of collapse.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Mark ex­plained that over the past ten days school of­fi­cials have been plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to re­pair the bridge, which is pre­vent­ing ve­hic­u­lar ac­cess to the school, with­out suc­cess. Mean­while, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts said the school floods reg­u­lar­ly. He said he too had been lob­by­ing for as­sis­tance with­out any head­way.

“This is the sixth time that the school has flood­ed out for this year and no one is tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this bridge. The Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion has said the bridge falls un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Works, but the min­istry says it be­longs to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um but when con­tact­ed Her­itage said it was re­spon­si­ble for the road and not the bridge. 

An­oth­er par­ent, Kenon Gross said they were con­cerned about the safe­ty of the stu­dents and staff.

“We need as­sis­tance to get the bridge re­pairs,” he said.

Last week the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by- Dol­ly said she was aware of the con­cerns at the school and had re­ferred the mat­ter to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Mon­day, Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein con­firmed that his min­istry will do re­pairs on the bridge.

He said a team vis­it­ed the bridge last week, adding that his min­istry was treat­ing the mat­ter with ur­gency.

“This is a se­ri­ous is­sue be­cause it in­volves the lives of chil­dren so we will be work­ing to have this project done,” he added.