KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion re­pair pro­gramme got un­der­way yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath as­sured that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to have all schools open on time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Recog­nis­ing the re­cur­ring is­sue of de­layed school re­open­ings due to un­fin­ished re­pairs, Dowlath con­firmed that work had start­ed at 278 schools across the coun­try. He made the an­nounce­ment af­ter launch­ing the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice’s Youth Em­pow­er­ment Camp at San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School.

Dowlath said the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS) has al­ready scoped works for over 200 schools, with con­trac­tors ex­pect­ed on site this week. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will soon re­lease in­for­ma­tion about the schools in­clud­ed in the first phase.

“We are do­ing more ex­ten­sive re­pairs at the start, and in about three weeks, we will be­gin the sec­ond phase for mi­nor works, so the pro­gramme has start­ed,” he said.

Dowlath out­lined that the Min­istry en­sured fund­ing was in place be­fore mo­bil­is­ing con­trac­tors.

“The EF­P­PD de­part­ment of the Min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with MTS, is ac­tive­ly in­volved. I will al­so be on the ground, as the Prime Min­is­ter said, ‘Boots on the ground’. From to­mor­row, I’ll be vis­it­ing schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go with Min­istry per­son­nel to mon­i­tor progress.”

Fol­low­ing the mid-year bud­get re­view, Dowlath said Cab­i­net al­lo­cat­ed $83 mil­lion for school re­pairs, in ad­di­tion to a pri­or $130 mil­lion.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia, TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said his as­so­ci­a­tion re­quest­ed the list of schools ear­marked for re­pairs months ago. How­ev­er, TTUTA on­ly learned about the se­lect­ed schools through me­dia re­ports and has yet to re­ceive of­fi­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion.

“Up un­til now, we have not been giv­en a list of those schools, so we are not aware of those schools which are ear­marked to be re­paired dur­ing this Au­gust va­ca­tion. We are hope­ful that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion com­pletes the nec­es­sary emer­gency work that will al­low for schools to be re­opened,” Lum Kin said.

He added that TTUTA will mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly, and its of­fi­cials will vis­it schools in the first week of the new term to as­sess the re­pair ef­forts.

Speak­ing to stu­dents at the launch of the em­pow­er­ment camp, Dowlath said the pro­gramme will equip youth with es­sen­tial soft skills, in­clud­ing team­work, time man­age­ment, and emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion. Par­tic­i­pants will al­so be trained in ro­bot­ics and com­put­er sci­ence. He hopes they re­turn to school in­spired to men­tor their peers.

“This is a holis­tic ap­proach. Some young peo­ple are un­der in­tense pres­sure from so­cial me­dia and peer in­flu­ences,” he said.

He added that more camps are planned, in­clud­ing one at the Em­ba­cadere EC­CE Cen­tre and an­oth­er in Mara­bel­la next month. MPs have been en­gag­ing NGOs to sup­port these camps. Dowlath said his of­fice pri­ori­tised un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties by con­sult­ing res­i­dents and iden­ti­fy­ing ar­eas in need.

“If our young peo­ple can find pro­duc­tive ways to col­lab­o­rate in­stead of re­sort­ing to vi­o­lence, it will ben­e­fit them long term,” he said.

Stu­dents face sanc­tions, not ex­pul­sion, af­ter school as­sault.

Dowlath al­so gave an up­date on five Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va stu­dents charged with as­sault­ing a peer last month, con­firm­ing that while the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is tak­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, the girls have not been ex­pelled. He said sanc­tions were be­ing ap­plied, but de­tails re­main con­fi­den­tial due to the stu­dents’ ages.

“You do not want to stain their char­ac­ter in a way so that they will not have fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties. Ed­u­ca­tion is sup­posed to be able to take young peo­ple, no mat­ter if they have run afoul of the rules, but al­so be able to re­form them and bring them back in­to so­ci­ety and al­low them op­por­tu­ni­ties to go on.”

Fol­low­ing the June 10 in­ci­dent out­side the school, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared that acts of school vi­o­lence would be treat­ed as both ex­pellable and ar­restable of­fences.

“If your child as­saults an­oth­er, they will be ex­pelled and face the full brunt of the law,” she warned, urg­ing par­ents to take more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour.

The girls, aged 14 to 18, were charged with as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm.

Asked about ex­pul­sion, Dowlath said the Min­istry has opt­ed for al­ter­na­tive place­ment for the girls, such as SER­VOL, MI­LAT, MY­PART, and NESC, which cater to stu­dents who don’t thrive in tra­di­tion­al school­ing.

“We are not throw­ing our stu­dents in­to the wind be­cause of their be­hav­iour. We are do­ing the in­ter­ven­tions to al­low them to un­der­stand that their be­hav­iour was not right, and if they have bro­ken the rules at the school lev­el and the na­tion­al lev­el, that there are sanc­tions that must be in place.”

Dowlath said the Min­istry re­mains re­spon­si­ble for these stu­dents and is com­mit­ted to of­fer­ing sup­port.

“We give an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the young peo­ple to re­form and to change their be­hav­iour, and so the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, through the SSSD de­part­ment and oth­ers, we are en­gag­ing in the coun­selling and all the oth­er in­ter­ven­tions to make sure that that be­hav­iour that was dis­played will not con­tin­ue in the fu­ture.”