Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Par­ents of La Fil­lette Ro­man Catholic Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School pupils have is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to find ap­pro­pri­ate ac­com­mo­da­tion for their chil­dren im­me­di­ate­ly.

Since 2016, stu­dents have been us­ing the hall of the Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary School as their class­rooms, as the orig­i­nal La Fil­lette RC Pri­ma­ry School struc­ture was con­demned due to sev­er­al in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues. The par­ents say that the tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tions are in­ad­e­quate and this is hurt­ing their chil­dren’s progress.

Par­ents have giv­en the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry one week to find a so­lu­tion. 

The mat­ter has even en­gaged the at­ten­tion of Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ari­ma and Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who wrote to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gadb­sy-Dol­ly in June with an ur­gent call for ac­tion on the school’s con­struc­tion.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, Beck­les wrote, “De­spite the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Ju­ly 2015, which promised swift ac­tion, progress has been neg­li­gi­ble. The lack of ad­vance­ment has sig­nif­i­cant­ly height­ened frus­tra­tions with­in the school com­mu­ni­ty. On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 26, 2024, the PTA sub­mit­ted a de­tailed list of con­cerns, which I have en­closed with this cor­re­spon­dence. The doc­u­ments high­light the crit­i­cal need for a fit-to-pur­pose school build­ing. The pro­longed de­lay im­pedes our stu­dents’ ed­u­ca­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, health and safe­ty and fos­ters dis­con­tent among par­ents and ed­u­ca­tors.

“The de­lay has led to re­peat­ed com­plaints and vis­its to my of­fice, in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing a source of em­bar­rass­ment and pos­ing a risk to the rep­u­ta­tion of both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Gov­ern­ment. It is per­ceived as a fail­ure to de­liv­er on our promis­es to time­ly and ef­fec­tive ed­u­ca­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture ... I am con­fi­dent in our col­lec­tive abil­i­ty to re­solve these is­sues swift­ly.”

In re­sponse, on June 28, Gads­by-Dol­ly wrote to Beck­les, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ac­knowl­edges re­ceipt of your cor­re­spon­dence June 18, 2024, and re­ceived the in of­fice June 21, 2024. Kind­ly note that your con­cerns out­lined are du­ly not­ed and the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

Ac­cord­ing to par­ents, who wished to speak off the record for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, the grades of their chil­dren are suf­fer­ing, while many chil­dren are ask­ing to stay home. They com­plained that some chil­dren spent their en­tire pri­ma­ry school ed­u­ca­tion in what was sup­posed to be a tem­po­rary so­lu­tion.

“When it rains, the chil­dren and their book bags get wet. And right now, about two chil­dren have fall­en ill with heat stroke. In there gets very hot. There are about three fans in cer­tain class­rooms and even with the fans, it is very hot.

“With the wash­rooms the chil­dren are us­ing in the hall­way, there is on­ly one bath­room work­ing in the girl’s toi­let and in the boy’s bath­room there are no locks on any of the doors. So while the chil­dren are in there, oth­er chil­dren are push­ing open the doors and stand­ing up watch­ing them. It is too much,” a moth­er com­plained.

A T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tion two weeks ago told the im­pact of the new La Fil­lette Pri­ma­ry School project be­ing aban­doned. The com­mu­ni­ty was promised a $17.5 mil­lion struc­ture, un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, in 2015. At least $204,000 was spent on con­struc­tion and re­pairs on the build­ing over the last eight years, but not a sin­gle brick was laid for the new fa­cil­i­ty. The project, un­der the con­tro­ver­sial and de­funct Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EF­CL), was list­ed as 22 per cent com­plete un­der the 2016 State En­ter­pris­es In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (SEIP).

Ac­cord­ing to the par­ents, they shared the Guardian sto­ry af­ter it was pub­lished, but as a re­sult, their chil­dren were vic­timised by some school staff.

“The staff is telling per­sons (par­ents) that if they con­tin­ue to share, they will take them to court.

“The chil­dren are not even func­tion­ing well. Chil­dren are be­ing called names,” an­oth­er moth­er said.

Over eight years, be­tween fis­cal years 2016 and 2023, at least $3.3 bil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to projects to re­pair or con­struct pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s re­search.

There are 453 pri­ma­ry schools and 125 sec­ondary schools in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. On av­er­age, that means each school has re­ceived re­fur­bish­ment and con­struc­tion fund­ing of $5.7 mil­lion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly pre­vi­ous­ly said the chal­lenges schools in T&T face with re­pairs stem from a lack of suf­fi­cient fund­ing, de­spite the sub­stan­tial $5 bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in the last bud­get.

Gads­by-Dol­ly was de­fend­ing the lack of readi­ness of some schools for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year at the start of this month. The min­is­ter said the min­istry was left with on­ly $150 mil­lion for the School Re­pair Pro­gramme af­ter the $5 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion was di­vid­ed in­to re­cur­rent and oth­er ex­pens­es.