Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Par­ents of stu­dents at Guayagua­yare Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day staged a protest at the school gates, de­mand­ing the im­me­di­ate re­moval of ex­pired chem­i­cals from the school’s lab.

Say­ing this was the most press­ing is­sue, they al­so com­plained about the build­ing’s di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion, in­clud­ing col­laps­ing ceil­ings, un­se­cured gal­vanised sheets, large cracks in the struc­ture, ex­posed elec­tri­cal wiring, and a ro­dent prob­lem.

Clay­ton Roberts, a par­ent of a Form Five stu­dent, said they want no more ex­cus­es or promis­es from the au­thor­i­ties.

“I am very dis­ap­point­ed with the peo­ple in charge of this school in terms of both the ed­u­ca­tion and the in­fra­struc­ture. In this school, we have chem­i­cals that are ex­pired and not re­moved, and chil­dren are un­able to use the labs.”

In­stead, he said that arrange­ments had been made for the stu­dents to use the labs at Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School. How­ev­er, the par­ents are con­cerned that the chem­i­cals are dan­ger­ous to the school pop­u­la­tion.

Com­plain­ing that sec­tions of the school have been cor­doned off with cau­tion tape, an­oth­er par­ent, Adan­na Charles-Guel­limo, lament­ed,

“No, enough is enough. They need to do some­thing about this. They need to do some­thing be­cause you’re send­ing your chil­dren here, not know­ing that there is so much hap­pen­ing—gal­vanised sheets falling, elec­tri­cal wires ex­posed, rats, cock­roach­es, cats, and snakes.”

Par­ent Nisha Grant al­so com­plained that there was a short­age of teach­ers, re­sult­ing in stu­dents be­ing un­able to take some sub­jects. An­oth­er par­ent, Ken­ton Grant, added that the Guayagua­yare RC Pri­ma­ry School was al­so in need of ur­gent re­pairs.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the min­istry’s fa­cil­i­ties de­part­ment had been asked to li­aise with the prin­ci­pal to re­solve the is­sue of re­mov­ing ex­pired chem­i­cals. The min­is­ter not­ed that the school was one of 15 schools ap­proved by Cab­i­net for Phase 2 of the Planned Re­fur­bish­ment Pro­gram, at a cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $286 mil­lion. She ex­plained that fund­ing to com­plete these works was cur­rent­ly be­ing iden­ti­fied.

She said the scope of work for Guayagua­yare Sec­ondary was es­ti­mat­ed at $14.6 mil­lion and in­clud­ed re­pairs to the roof/ceil­ing, ex­ter­nal paint­ing, win­dows/lou­vres, sew­er, struc­tur­al re­pairs, and elec­tri­cal up­grades. She ex­plained that the min­istry con­duct­ed re­pairs to schools in three cat­e­gories: emer­gency, planned re­fur­bish­ment, and new con­struc­tion.

She said Phase 1 of the planned re­fur­bish­ment work on 27 schools, which be­gan in 2022 at a cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $180 mil­lion, was at an ad­vanced stage of com­ple­tion.