JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

No classes at Preysal Government Primary school since Wednesday

by

629 days ago
20230908
Parents at the site of the Preysal Government Primary School where construction was halted several years ago

Parents at the site of the Preysal Government Primary School where construction was halted several years ago

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day yes­ter­day, Preysal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School pupils were un­able to at­tend class­es be­cause of a sew­er prob­lem on the com­pound.

Par­ents com­plained that for more than five years, the chil­dren have been housed at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre be­cause of the di­lap­i­dat­ed state of the school build­ing. They said it was not the first time there were sew­er prob­lems.

Con­struc­tion of a new school start­ed in 2014 dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, but came to a halt soon af­ter.

Par­ent Can­dace Bal­li­ram­s­ingh com­plained: “This is a hor­ri­ble and un­ac­cept­able sit­u­a­tion be­cause chil­dren are cramped up and clus­tered in a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and they ac­cus­tom to out­side be­ing in the play area. All of these things they don’t have.”

She called on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly to en­sure work re­sumes on the new school.

“We need a prop­er school for our chil­dren, please, be­cause they are be­ing de­prived of their ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

Near­by res­i­dents al­so com­plained that they have been de­nied use of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and the school com­pound is now a haven for snakes and crim­i­nals, pos­ing se­ri­ous health and se­cu­ri­ty risks.
Res­i­dent Sookdeo Sar­ran wants a gal­vanise fence, which he said is ob­struct­ing the view of the in­side of the com­pound, re­moved.
An­oth­er res­i­dent said once they’re giv­en per­mis­sion, they will re­move the fence them­selves and main­tain the prop­er­ty.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said sew­er prob­lems in schools are com­mon and dealt with in the short­est pos­si­ble time. She ex­plained that con­struc­tion of the school start­ed in 2014 and the Gov­ern­ment un­der­took it with­out fund­ing. She said this caused con­struc­tion of var­i­ous schools to grind to a halt.
Not­ing that the to­tal es­ti­mat­ed cost for com­ple­tion of these schools was $4 bil­lion, the Min­is­ter said Gov­ern­ment has been in­cre­men­tal­ly com­plet­ing them in phas­es. She said 13 were com­plet­ed in 2021 at a cost of $400 mil­lion, and sev­en more are be­ing com­plet­ed at a cost of $420 mil­lion. The Preysal school is among those still to be com­plet­ed.
Gads­by-Dol­ly did not in­di­cate when work might re­sume on that school.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored