by Sascha Wil­son

Wor­ried that cramped con­di­tions and poor ven­ti­la­tion will put their chil­dren at greater risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19, par­ents from the Rousil­lac Hin­du School protest­ed yes­ter­day for the com­ple­tion of a new school.

Bear­ing plac­ards, the par­ents demon­strat­ed in front of the Rousil­lac Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where stu­dents have been housed for nine years fol­low­ing a fire that par­tial­ly de­stroyed the school at Grants Road in 2003.

The stu­dents were moved to a tem­ple but in 2005 they re­turned to a sec­tion of the school that was not dam­aged in the blaze.

Un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, the chil­dren were re­lo­cat­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre while the school build­ing was de­mol­ished to make way for a new school.

Con­struc­tion start­ed that year but stopped in 2015 when the gov­ern­ment changed and since then, par­ents have been clam­our­ing for the build­ing - which is 80 per cent com­plet­ed - to be fin­ished.

With phys­i­cal school set to be ful­ly re­opened on April 19, par­ents and guardians com­plained that the con­di­tions are not safe for their chil­dren and the sit­u­a­tion is ex­as­per­at­ed by COVID-19.

The school has a pop­u­la­tion of 185 stu­dents and nine teach­ers.

Flo­ra Boodoo com­plained, “Our chil­dren have been de­nied a school. I have two chil­dren pass through this com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. They nev­er know a prop­er school. The con­di­tion here is bad. In this pan­dem­ic, we need our school right now.

“They ain’t know what is a prop­er class­room, a prop­er toi­let. Every­body cramped up over here, so we need our school right now.”

She con­tin­ued, “The com­plaints are they don’t have a prop­er play­ground. The class­room is very cramped, we in a pan­dem­ic. The class­room is very hot, all the chil­dren have to use just one girls’ and one boys’ toi­let. Even the teach­ers does com­plain it not san­i­tary and it is not com­fort­able for them to do teach­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.”

Renu­ka Gang, who has nephews at­tend­ing the school, com­plained that the chil­dren are be­ing de­prived of hav­ing a prop­er ed­u­ca­tion.

“It’s very poor, be­cause to cram 185 stu­dents, think about it, they are go­ing to kill our kids and we need our school. It’s 80 per cent com­plete, why they can’t fin­ish the 20 per cent and let the chil­dren go there? It’s very hard to know that there’s an un­fin­ished build­ing and these chil­dren are de­prived an ed­u­ca­tion.”

An­oth­er par­ent, Maria Brown, plead­ed with the au­thor­i­ties to hear their plight.

“We are plead­ing and ask­ing and beg­ging for the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to please take heed and to please help the chil­dren of this com­mu­ni­ty, please, we are beg­ging,” im­plored Brown.

Ota­heite/Rousil­lac coun­cil­lor Javed Mo­hammed said par­ents and res­i­dents are dis­gust­ed and dis­sat­is­fied with the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to com­plete the school.

Lament­ing that chil­dren are suf­fer­ing, he said, “It (com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre) is crammed, every­body is close, stick up to­geth­er. What about COVID? COVID is still around. What is there in place come the 19th of April when every­body is sup­posed to be out in their num­bers?”

He al­so com­plained about un­san­i­tary con­di­tions at the cen­tre. Mo­hammed said, “A lot of par­ents have reser­va­tions in send­ing their chil­dren (back to school) giv­en the sta­tus here be­cause it is so hot and poor ven­ti­la­tion. How are these kids sup­posed to keep their masks on for the en­tire day dur­ing their school ses­sions?”

When con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said it would not be pos­si­ble to com­plete the school in time for school re­open­ing but said they will en­sure the con­di­tions at the present lo­ca­tion are ad­e­quate for the chil­dren.

“The MoE em­pathis­es with the cir­cum­stances of this and oth­er de­cant­ed schools, how­ev­er, com­ple­tion of this build­ing for school re­open­ing on April 19th is not lo­gis­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble, even if all fund­ing re­quired were avail­able. All ef­forts will be made to en­sure that con­di­tions at de­cant­ed lo­ca­tions are ad­e­quate for use by the stu­dents, as pre­vi­ous­ly ob­tained,” she said.

The min­is­ter said her min­istry is al­so work­ing with the Min­istry of Fi­nance to ob­tain the re­quired fund­ing to com­plete schools like Rousil­lac Hin­du, which are in­com­plete.

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