Jesse Ramdeo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­demned the as­sault of sev­er­al chil­dren at San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and reaf­firmed her gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to stu­dent safe­ty.

The at­tack, which oc­curred on June 2, has left the na­tion reel­ing. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the sus­pect—still at large—al­leged­ly en­tered the Pin­to Road, Ari­ma school com­pound through a hole in the perime­ter fence be­fore the bell rang around 8.30 am.

He re­port­ed­ly posed as an On-the-Job Trainee (OJT) mu­sic teacher and lured pupils in­to a store­room un­der the pre­text of need­ing help to move fur­ni­ture. Once in­side, he al­leged­ly locked the door and so­licit­ed sex­u­al acts from the chil­dren, of­fer­ing them mon­ey.

Re­spond­ing to an ur­gent ques­tion from Ari­ma MP and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her gov­ern­ment was treat­ing the mat­ter with ur­gency.

“I am ad­vised by the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion that so­cial work­ers and con­sul­tants will con­duct ses­sions re­gard­ing trau­ma sus­tained dur­ing that par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent, and we are re­view­ing the cur­rent se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols at that school and all schools through­out the coun­try.”

In a state­ment on Tues­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­firmed it was ful­ly co­op­er­at­ing with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“Pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion in­di­cates that the in­di­vid­ual was seen tra­vers­ing mul­ti­ple ar­eas of the school build­ing,” the min­istry said.

It al­so as­sured the pub­lic that school of­fi­cials act­ed swift­ly. “The prin­ci­pal and staff re­spond­ed prompt­ly, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished safe­ty pro­ce­dures and alert­ing the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.”

The min­istry has since launched a re­view of the school’s se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems and has in­tro­duced in­ter­im mea­sures.

“This step is part of our con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing the safe­ty and well-be­ing of all stu­dents, staff, and vis­i­tors across the na­tion­al school sys­tem,” the min­istry said.