Shas­tri Boodan

An ear­ly-morn­ing fire gut­ted the Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in cen­tral Trinidad yes­ter­day. Fire ap­pli­ances ar­rived on the scene at 2.30 am and found most of the blaze had en­gulfed the school.

The main struc­ture of the school, which housed all the class­es, li­brary and the com­put­er room, may have to be de­mol­ished be­cause of struc­tur­al dam­age. The on­ly struc­tures left in­tact were the ex­ter­nal toi­lets for pupils and an all-pur­pose shed. The in­side of the struc­ture, in­clud­ing all school records, was de­stroyed.

Fire of­fi­cers on the scene said the blaze may have been caused by an elec­tri­cal prob­lem that start­ed in the east­ern wing. How­ev­er, fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions will be car­ried out.

Dis­traught teach­ers said yes­ter­day was sup­posed to be a Christ­mas par­ty for the pupils. How­ev­er, all their re­port books, gifts, treats and toys were lost in the blaze.

Of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) were at the school yes­ter­day.

Ryan Ram­per­sad, chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said pend­ing ap­proval from the coun­cil, the CT­TRC was will­ing to as­sist with clear­ing the site.

Ram­per­sad said the area did not have a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and the school served as a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing point.

He sug­gest­ed that the Na­tion­al En­rich­ment Cen­tre at Carlsen Field, which was built sev­er­al years ago, be used in the in­ter­im to house pupils and con­duct class­es, es­pe­cial­ly Stan­dard 5 pupils who are writ­ing the SEA ex­ams in 2024.

Par­ents are call­ing on the min­istry to act quick­ly to pro­vide some lev­el of ac­com­mo­da­tion when school re­opens on Jan­u­ary 2, 2024. Nazi­ra Kel­ly said her fa­ther, her­self and her chil­dren at­tend­ed the school. Kel­ly said she was ex­treme­ly up­set to see the school, which was found­ed in 1966, de­stroyed.

The school has 176 stu­dents, 11 teach­ing staff, three clean­ers, two OJTs and one of­fice as­sis­tant.

Mar­sha Hug­gins, sec­ond VP of TTUTA, said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion would have to put mea­sures in place to find al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments for the school. She said fa­cil­i­ties in that area may be a chal­lenge to the MoE. Hug­gins said TTUTA would be ap­proach­ing the MoE to en­sure that in­fra­struc­ture for the school will be giv­en top pri­or­i­ty.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan-Gads­by-Dol­ly said the min­istry was work­ing to lo­cate an al­ter­na­tive arrange­ment for the pupils and teach­ers in the next term of the aca­d­e­m­ic year.