Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly says a rat in­fes­ta­tion at the Preysal Sec­ondary School has been dealt with and there are no rats at the in­sti­tu­tion ac­cord­ing to re­ports from the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly was speak­ing in the Sen­ate on Tues­day. The is­sue was raised by Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader Wade Mark.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter said the min­istry had bait­ed around the school co­pi­ous­ly with the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion's help and there have been no fur­ther dis­tur­bances of bait placed around the school, there­fore there was no in­fes­ta­tion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, "Schools all over T&T from time to time ex­pe­ri­ence chal­lenges. Some arise based on the school's clean­ing sched­ules, some­time lunch is left overnight, these en­cour­age pests. Once there's an is­sue at a school - pi­geon or ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion- these are dealt with ur­gent­ly by the min­istry."

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so replied to Mark's ques­tion about TTUTA's claim that over 20 schools were re­opened in un­safe and un­suit­able con­di­tions in­clud­ing pest in­fes­ta­tions and sig­nif­i­cant util­i­ty and in­fra­struc­ture is­sues.

"With re­gards to the re­port ref­er­enced by TTUTA, the min­istry is not in pos­ses­sion of same, and can­not com­ment on its ac­cu­ra­cy. How­ev­er, while schools may be in gen­er­al need of up­grade, and while the need for emer­gency works may arise dai­ly at var­i­ous schools, the min­istry op­er­ates no school which is deemed un­safe for oc­cu­pa­tion.

"Once a school presents an is­sue such as pest in­fes­ta­tion, or lack of struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty, the Min­istry's Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Plan­ning and Pro­cure­ment Di­vi­sion works with the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NMTS) to re­pair. If the sit­u­a­tion war­rants clo­sure, or par­tial clo­sure un­til the re­pairs are com­plet­ed, this is done as stan­dard prac­tice.

"If to­tal de­cant­i­ng of stu­dents and teach­ers is re­quired, that is arranged un­til the struc­ture is re­built safe­ly. In this re­gard, the MoE rou­tine­ly li­ais­es with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, Pub­lic Health Of­fi­cials and OS­HA as re­quired for guid­ance in deal­ing with all mat­ters of health and safe­ty," Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

On how many schools re­main un­opened due to un­safe con­di­tions, Gads­by-Dol­ly said these schools re­quire re­pair on an on­go­ing ba­sis.

"At the time of school re­open­ing we had Mt Hope Sec­ondary that was un­der­go­ing some re­pairs. That has since re­opened for stu­dents while re­pairs con­tin­ue."