An ac­ci­dent out­side a school in Princes Town on Wednes­day, in which a par­ent was in­jured, has trig­gered re­newed calls for prop­er and safe ac­com­mo­da­tions for the stu­dents.

The call comes from the pres­i­dent of the Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) at the Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian No 1, No­la Ramjohn-Karim.

Due to the school build­ing at Ed­ward Street be­ing con­demned and sub­se­quent­ly de­mol­ished, the stu­dents have been housed at the Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian No 2 for the past sev­en years.

How­ev­er, Ramjohn-Karim said apart from phys­i­cal chal­lenges, the chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion and holis­tic de­vel­op­ment are al­so im­pact­ed.

With a to­tal stu­dent pop­u­la­tion of 800, she said the In­fants De­part­ment and Stan­dard One and Two of both schools have been on a shift sys­tem, while the old­er chil­dren have nor­mal school hours.

How­ev­er, the PTA pres­i­dent com­plained that when the par­ents ar­rive at the school at the same time to col­lect or drop off their chil­dren when the shift changes around mid­day, it cre­ates a traf­fic night­mare and safe­ty haz­ard.

De­tail­ing Wednes­day’s ac­ci­dent, Ramjohn-Karim said the par­ent came to drop off his daugh­ter, who is a stu­dent of Pres­by­ter­ian No 1 and pick up stu­dents from the oth­er school. She said ve­hi­cles were parked on both sides of the road.

The par­ent, she said, was stand­ing by his door when a van drove past and pinned him against his ve­hi­cle. The van dri­ver (not a par­ent) drove off.

For­tu­nate­ly, the par­ent was not se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

“Again, we are say­ing if it wasn’t for this shift sys­tem, that would not have hap­pened, we would not have two schools’ pop­u­la­tions com­ing and go­ing at the same time. These chil­dren need to have whole-day school. The chil­dren on the evening shift of Pres 1, when they come here, they are very, very tired. It is two o’clock in the day. It is very hot,” she lament­ed.

Ramjohn-Karim, who has twin grand­chil­dren at­tend­ing the school, said when the chil­dren get home, they are ex­haust­ed and can­not do home­work.

“We have to hire some­body in the morn­ing to take care of them, to or­gan­ise them to reach here in time for school at 12.30. How fair is that?”

Ques­tion­ing why the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can­not get the funds to build a pre-fab struc­ture, she said the Pres­by­ter­ian Board has al­ready giv­en per­mis­sion and they have the land. She ap­pealed to the Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion and Fi­nance to help.

“We beg­ging for our chil­dren’s sake. Please, some­thing needs to be done. These are five-year-old chil­dren five, six, sev­en, eight-year-olds. This is not right.”

The school, the PTA pres­i­dent said, is al­so lo­cat­ed in an iso­lat­ed area and she said it is not safe for the chil­dren to be at the school at 4 and 5 o’clock on af­ter­noons.

“Let these chil­dren have whole day school. It is re­al­ly un­fair, it is sin­ful, it is in­hu­mane what is be­ing done to these chil­dren. They need to have whole day school,” Ramjohn-Karim lament­ed.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.