RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Twelve schools, 11 in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go, yes­ter­day failed to re­open for class­es due to in­com­plete in­fra­struc­tur­al works or the lack of road ac­cess due to land slip­pages caused by flood­ing to­wards the end of last year.

This num­ber was dis­closed to the Guardian Me­dia by pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Mar­tin Lum Kin.

How­ev­er, this fig­ure con­tra­dict­ed what was giv­en by an of­fi­cial at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) who wished not to be iden­ti­fied. The of­fi­cial said on­ly two schools failed to re­open and that there were no oth­er “ma­jor in­ci­dents to re­port.”

The schools which failed to re­sume, ac­cord­ing to the min­istry of­fi­cial, were the Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School and Fan­ny Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

“At Cara­pichaima, there were in­com­ple­tion of works and at Fan­ny Vil­lage, in­ves­ti­ga­tions were still on­go­ing in­to a fire and we’ll have to await clear­ance from the fire of­fi­cials be­fore its re­opened,” the min­istry of­fi­cial said.

How­ev­er, Lum Kin chal­lenged the min­istry fig­ure.

“The min­istry has not re­al­ly giv­en the true pic­ture as to the amount of schools be­ing af­fect­ed and not re­opened and there are some on­go­ing is­sues, in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues, that the min­istry has not ad­dressed and it is run­ning in­to a mat­ter of years,” Lum Kin said.

Asked if TTUTA had got­ten any feed­back from the min­istry as to when the schools will be re­opened, Lum Kin said, “No. The in­for­ma­tion that we have, based up­on the re­spons­es we would have got­ten from our dis­trict of­fi­cials, we have not had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak with any of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cial as to when these schools will be re­opened.”

He added that there are some schools that will re­main closed for the rest of the week.

Lum Kin said the schools that weren’t re­opened and some that were par­tial­ly opened would have re­sumed class­es on­line in the in­ter­im.

How­ev­er, he added that TTUTA is “con­cerned that the MoE of­fi­cials are en­cour­ag­ing ad-hoc on­line en­gage­ments at a num­ber of schools.”

“TTUTA re­it­er­ates the point that on­line en­gage­ment is sub­ject to the ne­go­ti­a­tion and agree­ment with the rec­og­nized ma­jor­i­ty union, TTUTA,” Lum Kin added.

Lum Kin, how­ev­er, not­ed that TTUTA stands com­mit­ted to hold the nec­es­sary talks with the MoE and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

Ef­forts to reach the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day, as calls to her phone went unan­swered and she did not re­spond to What­sApp mes­sages.

Schools which did not re­open due to ei­ther in­fra­struc­ture is­sues or im­pass­able roads yes­ter­day:

1. ↓Cas­cade School for the Deaf - Com­ple­tion of re­pairs and san­i­ta­tion

2. ↓Don Miguel Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School - Sew­er is­sues

3. ↓Las Cuevas Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School

4. La Fil­lette RC Pri­ma­ry School

5. ↓Blan­chisseusse Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School

6. ↓Blan­chisseusse Sec­ondary School - Col­lapsed Road since No­vem­ber 2022

7. ↓Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School - Un­safe pre­fab­ri­cat­ed build­ing

8. ↓Bras­so Ve­na­do Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School - Land­slips af­fect­ing ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty

9. ↓Caratal RC Pri­ma­ry School - Ac­cess road is un­safe

10. ↓Fan­ny Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School - Fire dur­ing the va­ca­tion

11. ↓Mor­vant Laven­tille Sec­ondary School - Col­lapsed fence, re­pairs on­go­ing

12. ↓Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School - On­go­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al work