Twen­ty un­fin­ished schools have been placed on a pri­or­i­ty list for com­ple­tion, among these the Chatham Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

This was re­vealed by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia in re­sponse to com­plaints from res­i­dents that three pri­ma­ry schools in Ce­dros were shut down be­cause of in­fra­struc­tur­al de­fects.

Gar­cia said many of the in­com­plete schools were held up be­cause of out­stand­ing debts owed to con­trac­tors.

"When I as­sumed of­fice, there were sev­er­al schools at var­i­ous stages of con­struc­tion. A num­ber of con­trac­tors were not paid and some even took the Min­istry to court for non-pay­ment. We have been meet­ing with con­trac­tors to dis­cuss out­stand­ing is­sues and I am hap­py to re­port that pay­ments will be made to some con­trac­tors in a mat­ter of days. Con­struc­tion will re­sume on those schools which are on a pri­or­i­ty list­ing," Gar­cia said.

On Tues­day, Ce­dros res­i­dent Sunil Sookram said stu­dents of Chatham Gov­ern­ment, Granville RC and Ce­dros An­gli­can schools have been suf­fer­ing af­ter their schools were shut down.

While one school, the Chatham Gov­ern­ment School has been re­built and is 90 per­cent com­plete, grass and bush­es are grow­ing in­side the com­pound. The pupils have been forced to at­tend class­es in a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre at War­den Road, lo­cat­ed some 15 miles away. The Granville RC pupils are housed in con­tain­ers at the Granville Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre while the Ce­dros An­gli­can has been shar­ing cramped quar­ters with the Ce­dros Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

"Imag­ine young chil­dren as lit­tle as five years have to get up be­fore dawn to get dressed to go to school," Sookram said.

He added that ed­u­ca­tion was the key to end­ing pover­ty in the south­west penin­su­la. While many par­ents want­ed their chil­dren to ex­cel, Sookram said their chances of suc­cess were grim be­cause of the clo­sure of the schools.

"I get so an­gry when I hear the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion said all schools were opened for the new term. This is not the case in Ce­dros. Our chil­dren are suf­fer­ing," Sookram said.

Kis­han Bab­wah, 22 who stud­ied elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing at the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre said the NESC cam­pus in Point Fortin was al­so closed down.

"My dream is to be an elec­tri­cian but now that NESC closed we re­al­ly have no choice but to do fish­ing and farm­ing in Ce­dros," Bab­wah said.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh called on the gov­ern­ment to re­build the schools for the sake of the chil­dren.

He said when the Granville RC was closed down in 2017, the Min­is­ter promised that it would be re­con­struct­ed with­in a two year pe­ri­od.

"So far not a shov­el of dirt has been turned. The Chatham school was re­con­struct­ed and the Ear­ly Child­hood cen­tre is 95 per­cent com­plete but none of them has been opened," Teelucks­ingh said.

He not­ed that the Chatham pupils were packed up like sar­dines in a tin in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

"The monies they pay to max­is to car­ry the chil­dren to Point Fortin could be used to fin­ish the school. If the Chatham school is opened, the chil­dren could walk to school," he said.