JESSE RAMDEO

Se­nior Re­porter

Both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) say they have heard lit­tle to noth­ing from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on school re­pairs.

TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said they are yet to re­ceive a list of the schools that need re­pairs.  He said the min­istry in­formed them the pro­gramme could on­ly pro­ceed when funds are re­leased.

But Lum Kin and his mem­bers be­lieve re­pairs are best done dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion. 

And with the new school year start­ing in less than a month, Lum Kin said he's con­cerned, be­cause, based on his in­for­ma­tion, no re­pairs have be­gun.

“There are many schools in need of re­pairs and we are con­cerned that [the Min­istry] are putting the lives and safe­ty of oc­cu­pants at risk in schools that need work,” he said.

The TTUTA pres­i­dent made it clear that they will not ac­cept the bad­ger­ing from ed­u­ca­tion min­istry of­fi­cials to have schools deemed fit for re­open­ing when there are clear health and safe­ty is­sues.

And NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art shares TTUTA's con­cerns.

He said they al­so re­quest­ed from the min­istry a list of schools in need of re­pairs but did not get any feed­back.

Stew­art said based on his in­for­ma­tion, many of the schools that they work with, which need re­pairs, have not had any work done in the last month.

“To the best of my knowl­edge, the af­fil­i­ate schools have not seen any re­pairs since this va­ca­tion pe­ri­od,” Stew­art re­port­ed.

Up to the time of pub­lish­ing this re­port, Guardian Me­dia’s at­tempts to ob­tain a com­ment on the mat­ter from Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly were un­suc­cess­ful.