DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Less than a month in­to the new school term, La Hor­quet­ta North Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School has been closed be­cause of ma­jor elec­tri­cal is­sues.

Pupils who re­turned to phys­i­cal class­es on Sep­tem­ber 4 were told to stay at home from last Fri­day and will not re­turn to class­es un­til the prob­lem is solved. Ac­cord­ing to sources, on­ly Stan­dard Five pupils are be­ing taught re­mote­ly.

The ex­ten­sive re-wiring project re­port­ed­ly be­gan af­ter the ap­provals were grant­ed up­on re­quest from the prin­ci­pal. The re­pairs are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by Mon­day. There is no word on how pupils will be taught in the in­ter­im and it is un­clear when the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion be­came aware of the is­sue.

The pri­ma­ry school was not among the six schools that re­mained closed at the start of the term. Those af­fect­ed schools were Sis­ter’s Road An­gli­can, Sixth Com­pa­ny An­gli­can, Las Cuevas Gov­ern­ment, Hap­py Hill Hin­du, Bal­main Pres­by­ter­ian, and St Rose’s Girls’ RC. Two schools in To­ba­go, Mt St George Pri­ma­ry and Par­latu­vi­er An­gli­can, al­so re­mained closed.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) was crit­i­cal the school re­pairs con­duct­ed dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. How­ev­er, the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) dis­agreed, sug­gest­ing that ex­ten­sive work might not have been able to be com­plet­ed on time.