Jesse Ramdeo and Sashtri Boodan

The doors to at least two sec­ondary schools will re­main closed due to in­com­plete in­fra­struc­tur­al works, while the vast ma­jor­i­ty of schools across the coun­try re­open to­day.

Among the scores of stu­dents not re­turn­ing to their class­rooms fol­low­ing the Christ­mas va­ca­tion are those from the Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School.

Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram said par­ents were giv­en a let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 29, 2022, which stat­ed that the fire in­spec­torate had closed an en­tire block at the school be­cause of elec­tri­cal is­sues as the area had been deemed a dan­ger zone.

Ac­cord­ing to Rati­ram, the let­ter stat­ed that on­ly Forms 4 and 5 would be ac­com­mo­dat­ed while Forms 1 to 3 stu­dents would re­main at home for the first week of school and at­tend on­line class­es. Rati­ram was ap­palled, he said, that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is drag­ging its feet on the is­sue. Rati­ram said "The fire in­spec­torate has closed off the pre­fab sec­tion that would have housed the ear­ly forms. There was a fire at this school in ear­ly No­vem­ber (2022) and be­cause of this, the school could not have op­er­at­ed prop­er­ly."

He said teach­ers are be­ing asked to en­gage in on­line class­es while par­ents have to re­turn to work. "Who will su­per­vise these chil­dren at home, and what sys­tems are in place?"

The MP said hav­ing stu­dents stay at home was a recipe for dis­as­ter. "The teach­ers union has com­plained about this, the teach­ers have com­plained, and the par­ents are call­ing me and com­plain­ing."

Rati­ram said he want­ed to know if any work-at-home arrange­ments have been put in place so par­ents could su­per­vise their chil­dren.

He said there was am­ple time to fix the struc­ture dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. "This hap­pened in No­vem­ber. This is a pre­fab (build­ing), a tem­po­rary struc­ture. Why is the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion play­ing dol­ly house with chil­dren of the na­tion?"

The MP and coun­cil­lor Vis­han Mo­hammed vis­it­ed the shool over the week­end and saw ob­scene graf­fi­ti sprayed on the school sign at the front of the fa­cil­i­ty. Rati­ram said he plans to meet with the teacher's union to put arrange­ments in place to paint over the ob­scene graf­fi­ti.

File: A view of one of the blocks at the Scarborough Secondary School.

TRINIDAD GUARDIAN

Mean­while, the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy has ad­vised that class­es at Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School will re­sume from week two, as works are on­go­ing to re­store the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of the au­di­to­ri­um.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers a de­ci­sion was tak­en to al­low the con­trac­tor an ad­di­tion­al week to com­plete the works. "All stake­hold­ers con­tributed to so­lu­tions that will lim­it learn­ing loss dur­ing this week off," the state­ment added.

Stu­dents have been urged to check their school's web­site and their emails for cor­re­spon­dence from their teach­ers. Class­es for all 6th Form stu­dents and teach­ers will re­sume to­day at the UWI Open Cam­pus, Sig­nal Hill.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is ex­pect­ed to con­vene a meet­ing to­day to ad­vance con­ver­sa­tions about the school's re­lo­ca­tion.

EC­CE, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents, mean­while, will be pro­vid­ed with meals from to­day. The ex­er­cise by the school nu­tri­tion pro­gramme will con­tin­ue as sched­uled for the re­main­der of the term.

While fire razed three class­rooms at the new­ly opened 37 mil­lion dol­lars Fan­ny Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School on New Year's Day, the "op­er­a­tions should not be too ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed," said Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly. The min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia that the blaze was iso­lat­ed. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be launched to de­ter­mine the cause of the fire, she added.