While the ma­jor­i­ty of the na­tion's chil­dren re­turned to school on Tues­day, stu­dents from the Caratal Sa­cred Heart RC School in Gas­par­il­lo were forced to stay home af­ter the road lead­ing to the school col­lapsed.

The stu­dents armed with plac­ards joined their par­ents in a protest out­side the school ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing as they called on the gov­ern­ment to fix the road now.

Pres­i­dent of the school's Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Cory Woods said on both sides of the road, through Par­force Road and Caratal Road, ac­cess has been cut off as the roads have slipped dan­ger­ous­ly.

"For the longest while we try­ing to get this road in or­der. We know times are hard but our chil­dren need their ed­u­ca­tion. This is Tabaquite, but whether this is an Op­po­si­tion area or not, doesn't mat­ter. Our chil­dren need their ed­u­ca­tion," Woods said.

He said all over Gas­par­il­lo road­works were con­tin­u­ing.

"Why are you fight­ing the road? It is not hard to fix this road. In cer­tain places in Gas­par­il­lo grounds fix, lights fix, roads fix and no­body liv­ing there but here we suf­fer­ing. The chil­dren can­not reach school whether you pass through Par­force or through the side. They de­lib­er­ate­ly not fix­ing it. Every­body here pays tax and we want to know why our road is not be­ing fixed," he said.

Mean­while, Ada Layne, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the road has wors­ened since the school closed in De­cem­ber.

" The road is slip­ping so bad­ly. Right be­fore the school closed, two teach­ers' cars slipped and peo­ple had to push the cars up the hill," she said.

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan and is await­ing a com­ment. This sto­ry will be up­dat­ed as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.