Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) of Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary is call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ur­gent­ly ad­dress what it says are se­ri­ous health and safe­ty con­cerns at the school, just days be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins.

While the PTA has stepped in to ad­dress some of the school’s needs, its pres­i­dent Tracey Turn­er-Al­leyne said more crit­i­cal re­pairs re­main out­stand­ing and are be­yond the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Us­ing funds raised by the PTA, mem­bers be­gan paint­ing class­rooms and car­ry­ing out mi­nor re­fur­bish­ment works last week. How­ev­er, Turn­er-Al­leyne said ur­gent re­pairs are still need­ed to en­sure the school is safe and ready to ac­com­mo­date stu­dents when class­es re­sume.

Speak­ing at the school gates yes­ter­day, Turn­er-Al­leyne said they have spent $2,500 on paint sup­plies to car­ry out work in more than 20 class­rooms. The school pop­u­la­tion com­pris­es more than 600 stu­dents and about 70 staff mem­bers.

“We are here dur­ing this va­ca­tion hol­i­day since last week, paint­ing class­rooms, try­ing to get things or­gan­ised, but we are see­ing the dis­par­i­ties. The lack of chairs, ta­bles and win­dows that are miss­ing, that al­low cats to come in and mess up in the class­rooms, all in the cor­ri­dors.”

She con­tin­ued, “There are some in­fra­struc­tures in the schools, the over­head ceil­ings that are rot­ted, and I be­lieve it’s a haz­ard to the stu­dents, to every­body on the com­pound as a mat­ter of fact.”

Turn­er-Al­leyne said the prob­lems have de­vel­oped over time, and while some work was car­ried out dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od, sev­er­al con­cerns re­main out­stand­ing.

PTA vice pres­i­dent Mar­lon Jaikaran said the grounds are al­so over­grown with high grass and there are no fire ex­tin­guish­ers or hoses in the event of an emer­gency.

He added, “The class­rooms are un­fit for teach­ing pur­pos­es, for chil­dren go­ing in there to start to learn, for the com­ing new term. The chairs are rust­ed, the class­rooms are be­ing paint­ed by us to ac­com­mo­date these chil­dren. The rail­ings at the school are very rust­ed. The roof is in a de­plorable state. We have an in­fes­ta­tion of pi­geons. The toi­lets are not be­ing up­kept, right? The sur­round­ings of the school: the grass needs cut­ting and there’s on­ly one main­te­nance per­son from MTS do­ing that ser­vice.”

Jaikaran said safe­ty of­fi­cers al­so need to do more to en­sure the con­cerns are ad­dressed and, where nec­es­sary, re­port­ed to the Min­istry and oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties. He said for years they have sent cor­re­spon­dence to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion about their con­cerns, and the main ex­cuse they’ve re­ceived was that funds were un­avail­able.

“We are ask­ing the min­istry to try and put a help­ing hand be­cause the PTA can­not do it by them­selves. We have thrown fundrais­ers.

We have thrown it out to the par­ents to give do­na­tions, and this is our cause here to­day. We are beg­ging to keep Mara­bel­la North up and run­ning to a par­tic­u­lar stan­dard,” he said.

The PTA is now call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to vis­it the school, as­sess the con­di­tions and ad­dress the out­stand­ing is­sues.

Plead­ing for the min­is­ter’s at­ten­tion, she said, “Sir please come and have a walk in Mara­bel­la North, come and see the con­di­tion that our school is in of the school is in. Come and have a look at our class­rooms. We have class­rooms that have no ta­bles or chairs in it, and we would like our chil­dren to be able to have the best here.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.