Two years af­ter Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly an­nounced that con­struc­tion of the Holy Cross An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School in Mara­bel­la was 90 per cent com­plete, the school re­mains un­opened.

Yes­ter­day, par­ents and mem­bers of the Mara­bel­la Boys’ and Girls’ Past Stu­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion staged a plac­ard demon­stra­tion in front of the school com­pound, de­mand­ing an­swers from the Min­is­ter and San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi.

Pupils of the Mara­bel­la Boys’ and Girls’ An­gli­can Schools were re­lo­cat­ed nine years ago to fa­cil­i­tate the con­struc­tion of a new build­ing and are be­ing ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the St Paul’s Boys’ An­gli­can and oth­er schools.

In a What­sApp re­sponse yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said elec­tri­cal work is still out­stand­ing and the build­ing has not yet been hand­ed over to the min­istry. She said the is­sue has been dis­cussed with the MTS, which is man­ag­ing the project, and the An­gli­can Board.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can­not re­spon­si­bly al­low stu­dents to oc­cu­py a struc­ture that does not have the re­quired clear­ance from T&TEC,” she ex­plained.

Spokesper­son for the Past Stu­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Trevor Mor­ris, said in 2019 Al-Rawi in­di­cat­ed that $400 mil­lion had been bor­rowed to pay con­trac­tors and ef­forts were be­ing made to have con­struc­tion of the school build­ing com­plet­ed as soon as pos­si­ble.

“We had a num­ber of state­ments be­ing made, which, to us, doesn’t make one bit of sense be­cause we did not get up at the end of Au­gust 2023 and know that school would be opened on the fourth of Sep­tem­ber. Plan­ning had to be done, yet it has been nine years and count­ing,” he said.

Marisa Davis, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, said she want­ed to know when the school would be opened.

“We have been hear­ing for years every year is the next year, every term is the next term. To­day we would like to find out the ex­act day our chil­dren will be able to en­ter their school which has al­ready been com­plet­ed, and we would al­so like to get an­swers as to why we are not able to get in­to the school as yet and what is the keep back.”

Codeen Williams al­so com­plained that she has not been able to send her son to school be­cause the gov­ern­ment shut­tle ser­vice has been un­avail­able since the start of the school term.

“The trans­port has not re­ceived his mon­ey, so he will not be tak­ing the chil­dren to school, so my son is home. Next year he have Com­mon En­trance and he is miss­ing a lot of ed­u­ca­tion right now. I would like to find out ur­gent­ly from the min­istry this week,” she said.

Mara­bel­la West coun­cil­lor John Al­i­bo­cas, who ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the par­ents, called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­di­cate when the school would be opened.