RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Stu­dents of Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School will con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion from Mon­day through a struc­tured pro­gramme of school­work af­ter a fire gut­ted eight class­rooms at the Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, school yes­ter­day, forc­ing a tem­po­rary halt to nor­mal class­es.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said par­ents and guardians would be in­formed of the arrange­ments through the school’s es­tab­lished com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels.

He said the mea­sures were be­ing put in place while as­sess­ments con­tin­ue fol­low­ing the fire. He added that the min­istry is al­so work­ing with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to de­ter­mine the way for­ward and fa­cil­i­tate the safe re­sump­tion of school op­er­a­tions.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the min­istry said it was co­or­di­nat­ing with the Fire Ser­vice, the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion and the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools’ Board of Ed­u­ca­tion to de­ter­mine the nec­es­sary in­ter­ven­tions. Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice is con­duct­ing a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the school com­pound, with a de­tailed re­port ex­pect­ed by Wednes­day.

Ac­cess to the com­pound will re­main re­strict­ed un­til the Fire Ser­vice grants the nec­es­sary clear­ance.

No stu­dents or staff were on the school com­pound at the time of the in­ci­dent.

The fire re­port­ed­ly start­ed in the roof and ceil­ing area be­fore spread­ing through the class­room block.

Par­ent Dele­cion Williams said he was pass­ing the school short­ly af­ter 4 am when he saw the blaze.

Williams said he con­tact­ed the prin­ci­pal and sev­er­al teach­ers af­ter wit­ness­ing the fire.

Fire­fight­ers ar­rived prompt­ly. Williams de­scribed the blaze as in­tense and said fire­fight­ers had dif­fi­cul­ty ex­tin­guish­ing it as the flames con­tin­ued to flare up.

“At that time the blaze was a lit­tle high. It had a good blaze at that time,” Williams said.

The cause of the fire has not yet been de­ter­mined, and the ex­tent of the dam­age is still be­ing as­sessed.