GUARDIAN ME­DIA NEWS­ROOM

With Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounc­ing that the Bud­get will be pre­sent­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30th, par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing St. Do­minic's RC Pri­ma­ry School are call­ing on him to al­lo­cate funds for their new school.

It has been over sev­en years since an earth­quake dam­aged the Pe­nal school, forc­ing the chil­dren to oc­cu­py the pe­nal com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

Fol­low­ing a fiery protest last Jan­u­ary, the par­ents re­turned to­day in a peace­ful demon­stra­tion, say­ing they were try­ing a more peace­ful and Bib­li­cal ap­proach.

How­ev­er, one par­ent not­ed that they are stand­ing firm to let the min­istry of ed­u­ca­tion know that the par­ents are se­ri­ous about their de­mands.

Pres­i­dent of the St. Do­minic's RC Pri­ma­ry School’s PTA, Sharon Bap­tiste, ex­plained that the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre—which is not de­signed to func­tion as a school—lacks suf­fi­cient fa­cil­i­ties and ameni­ties.

She al­so told Guardian Me­dia that things are chal­leng­ing for some par­ents, as in­struc­tion for stu­dents in the In­fant class­es takes place at St. Do­minic's R.C. Church.

“It is very un­for­tu­nate for some par­ents who have to be go­ing back and forth to pick up their chil­dren from the parish hall and the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. If all our chil­dren were housed in one area, it would be even bet­ter,” she said.

The PTA spokesper­son said a new school is long over­due.

“We want a new school. We do not want to be placed some­where else. We just want our school right now,” she stat­ed.  “It has been over 10 years, and a lot of par­ents are up­set.”

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Mar­tin Lum Kin, joined the par­ents dur­ing their protest, stat­ing that teach­ers al­so are fac­ing sim­i­lar prob­lems.

Lum Kin told Guardian Me­dia that teach­ers have no Staff Room, they al­so are forced to eat their lunch­es at their desks, as well as to share the same wash­rooms as the stu­dents.

The TTUTA pres­i­dent al­so point­ed out that us­ing the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre as a school is hin­der­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

“We in TTUTA con­sid­er that every com­mu­ni­ty and every school is im­por­tant for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Pe­nal is no dif­fer­ent,” Lum Kin stat­ed.

“The par­ents, stu­dents, and ed­u­ca­tors of St. Do­minic's RC de­serve much bet­ter,” he as­sert­ed. “You can­not un­der­stand the con­di­tions un­der which our mem­bers op­er­ate.”

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr. Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said sev­er­al de­cant­ed schools have re­ceived new build­ings at their orig­i­nal lo­ca­tions this year.

Us­ing this as ev­i­dence of the min­istry's work, the min­is­ter as­sured that St. Do­minic's R.C. will be re­built as soon as fund­ing be­comes avail­able and gave as­sur­ances that it is a pri­or­i­ty.