Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Tak­ing note of the at­ten­tion paid by the State to St George’s Col­lege, which is a few kilo­me­tres away, par­ents/guardians of Mt Hope Sec­ondary School stu­dents were yes­ter­day left won­der­ing if they are be­ing left to suf­fer as a sec­ond class in­sti­tu­tion due to their for­mer “Ju­nior Sec” ti­tle.

A day that should have sym­bol­ised new be­gin­nings was marred with old prob­lems and was enough to catal­yse an ear­ly-morn­ing protest by the school’s Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA).

“Do we have to be a pres­tige school to get re­pairs? Be­cause I no­ticed St George’s on the news this morn­ing, their roof par­tial­ly col­lapsed, but our roof col­lapsed and, yet, we are still open, our teach­ers are still teach­ing, and our kids are in dan­ger,” cried PTA co­or­di­na­tor Mar­i­lyn Mar­quis.

Mar­quis, who her­self at­tend­ed the school as a child, said noth­ing much has changed since then.

“I went to this school, and you know the on­ly thing that has changed in the 30-odd years since? The uni­form changed and the bath­room still not work­ing,” she said.

Stand­ing out­side the school’s gate as stu­dents trick­led in­to the com­pound, in­ter­im PTA pres­i­dent Mer­rell Rod­ney ex­plained some of the is­sues at the in­sti­tu­tion.

“First of all, there is an in­fes­ta­tion of wood lice, both in the ceil­ings, in the fur­ni­ture, and it is de­plorable. OS­HA has cor­doned off part of the school be­cause it is a risk, parts of the stair­case is rot­ting away. In the quad­ran­gle, peo­ple can be elec­tro­cut­ed be­cause the wa­ter runs down through the main elec­tri­cal ports and when rain falls it floods the en­tire quad­ran­gle, so God for­bid, they are elec­tro­cut­ed be­cause there is loose wiring,” he said.

Mar­quis said pic­tures were sent to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry as proof of these prob­lems.

“If the min­istry wants to say we have not re­port­ed these things to them, we have! We have ev­i­dence! So, what is the prob­lem? Why aren’t we be­ing tak­en care of? Is it be­cause we have that ju­nior sec stig­ma still?” she asked.

The PTA won­dered what the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry did dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust school va­ca­tion.

The par­ents said un­for­tu­nate­ly, the chil­dren will suf­fer the most.

Not­ing that the school which is nev­er in the head­lines for bad be­hav­iour as­so­ci­at­ed with some gov­ern­ment sec­ondary in­sti­tu­tions, Mar­quis said, “Our kids are ex­celling in here de­spite the odds.”

Show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with the stu­dents, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin al­so joined the par­ents in protest. He, too, won­dered if the stu­dents need­ed to start fight­ing amongst each oth­er to get the at­ten­tion of the min­istry.

“We have oth­er schools with greater chal­lenges get­ting re­sources. Is it that this school has to un­der-per­form or there has to be vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline be­fore in­ter­ven­tion takes place? It should not be,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said there is in­sid­er in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest one pos­si­ble rea­son noth­ing was fixed at the school.

Ad­dress­ing the me­dia, Lum Kin said, “What we are privy to, is the fact that this school has been on the high-pri­or­i­ty list­ing for emer­gency re­pairs for a num­ber of years. How­ev­er, when it reach­es the high­er of­fices of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, then it is down­grad­ed and put aside.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, who said re­pairs should start soon.

Re­spond­ing via What­sApp Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Through MTS, a con­trac­tor is be­ing pro­cured to com­plete the fol­low­ing re­pairs: elec­tri­cal up­grade works, san­i­tary fit­tings re­place­ment to fe­male staff wash­room, ser­vice/re­pairs to air con­di­tion units, wa­ter tanks re­place­ment, re­place­ment of par­ti­tions to boys’ wash­room, clean­ing of clogged storm drains.”

Asked why this was not ad­dressed ear­li­er, the min­is­ter said, “The fund­ing re­quired to im­ple­ment the en­tire list of school re­pair projects for the Crit­i­cal Re­pair Pro­gramme 2024 to­talled $190 mil­lion. An ini­tial $20 mil­lion was avail­able to the MOE, and that was utilised to deal with the most crit­i­cal works. As more fund­ing be­came avail­able, oth­er crit­i­cal projects were added to the work pro­gramme.”

The min­is­ter did not ad­dress claims that the school is in­ten­tion­al­ly ig­nored on the pri­or­i­ty list.