Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry is brac­ing for pos­si­ble elec­tri­cal over­loads in the na­tion's schools be­cause of the in­stal­la­tion of air-con­di­tion units in class­rooms.

In a bid to pre­vent any fires or elec­tri­cal surges, the min­istry has al­ready start­ed do­ing full elec­tri­cal over­hauls in some schools.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter tour­ing 18 schools in south Trinidad yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh said over $15 mil­lion was spent in Au­gust to do elec­tri­cal up­grades in 15 schools.

"A num­ber of schools have in­stalled air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tems which is throw­ing a load on the elec­tri­cal sit­u­a­tion. Pret­ty soon we may have lots of prob­lems," Gopeesingh said. Ear­li­er this month, the elec­tri­cal wiring at the Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry school caught fire, caus­ing a one-week dis­rup­tion and sub­se­quent protest ac­tion by par­ents.

How­ev­er, Gopeesingh said the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Ltd and MTS will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the school con­di­tions to en­sure that teach­ers and stu­dents had a safe and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment.

Mea­sures tak­en­to stop spread­of chikun­gun­ya

He al­so said mea­sures were be­ing tak­en to pre­vent the spread of the chikun­gun­ya virus.

"We had a cam­paign start­ed last week to ed­u­cate and to erad­i­cate in the con­text of the spread of the Aedes Egyp­ti chikun­gun­ya virus and dengue. We want to en­sure that all of our schools are safe and clean in their sur­round­ings to pre­vent the spread of these dis­eases," Gopeesingh said.

He said it was im­por­tant for stu­dents to be­come ac­tive­ly in­volved in clean­ing up their own en­vi­ron­ment.

Prais­ing MTS for lead­ing the way to clean­li­ness, Gopeesingh said he has seen a marked im­prove­ment in how schools are be­ing main­tained.

"We have com­mon prob­lems in in­fra­struc­ture, the toi­let ar­eas, the wa­ter sys­tem, the troughs in the school, the walls, the floor­ing, the ceil­ing, the roofs, all of these have been looked at, but I am very pleased to see what is hap­pen­ing re­gard­ing the school in­fra­struc­ture," Gopeesingh said.