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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Safety at Santa Rosa primary questioned after predator poses as OJT

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
39 days ago
20250618
The Santa Rosa Government Primary School

The Santa Rosa Government Primary School

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

An al­leged sex­u­al as­sault at­tempt at San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School has left staff and stu­dents trau­ma­tised, af­ter an in­trud­er gained ac­cess to the premis­es on June 2nd. The preda­tor re­port­ed­ly locked him­self in a store­room with sev­er­al fe­male pupils and tried to mo­lest them.

The sus­pect, who is yet to be ap­pre­hend­ed by po­lice, re­port­ed­ly ac­cessed the school’s com­pound along Pin­to Road, Ari­ma, via a hole in the perime­ter fence, be­fore the bell rang around 8.30 am.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, wit­ness­es said the sus­pect, pre­tend­ing to be an On-the-Job Trainee (OJT) mu­sic teacher, is ac­cused of lur­ing pupils in­to a store­room un­der the guise of need­ing help to move fur­ni­ture. Once the chil­dren were in­side, he al­leged­ly locked the door and so­licit­ed sex­u­al acts from them, of­fer­ing mon­ey in ex­change.

As the ter­ri­fied pupils be­gan scream­ing for help, their school­mates out­side tried to break down the door but were un­suc­cess­ful. They alert­ed a fe­male teacher, who rushed to the class­room but she too could not res­cue the pupils.

The teacher then called on an MTS guard for as­sis­tance and alert­ed the po­lice. At that mo­ment, the sus­pect burst through the door, as­sault­ed the teacher by push­ing her to the ground, and fled the class­room, es­cap­ing the com­pound the same way he had en­tered.

Al­though staff and stu­dents re­ceived coun­selling through the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP) and the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD), of­fi­cials said this sup­port was in­suf­fi­cient, as some pupils have still not re­turned to school.

NPTA: Se­ri­ous breach of safe­ty pro­to­cols

Con­cerned about the in­ci­dent and the wel­fare of both staff and pupils, the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) de­scribed the pres­ence of an unau­tho­rised in­di­vid­ual on the school com­pound as “a se­ri­ous and se­vere breach of safe­ty pro­to­cols.”

NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art called for an im­me­di­ate and com­pre­hen­sive over­haul of the school’s safe­ty mea­sures, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing par­ents and vis­i­tors on the com­pound.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Stew­art said, “We have been re­li­ably in­formed that there is a hole in the perime­ter fence through which the in­trud­er may have gained en­try.”

The NPTA rec­om­mend­ed the im­me­di­ate en­force­ment of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion checks for all par­ents and vis­i­tors seek­ing en­try, with the re­quire­ment that they be es­cort­ed from the school gate to the of­fice.

Stew­art al­so em­pha­sised that se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel as­signed to schools must be ful­ly aware of and strict­ly ad­here to all safe­ty pro­to­cols at all times.

He re­it­er­at­ed that prin­ci­pals hold dai­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all stu­dents on their com­pound, and urged that ef­forts be made to reg­u­lar­ly re­view and strength­en se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

TTUTA wants more se­cu­ri­ty guards

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said the hole in the school’s fence was yet to be re­paired up to yes­ter­day.

Ex­press­ing con­cern over the in­ci­dent, he said, “We, along with the mem­bers of staff, are all con­cerned with the com­pli­ment of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers as­signed to the school.”

He re­newed the call for the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty guards at all schools.

MOE co­op­er­at­ing with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) is co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors. Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, “Pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion in­di­cates that the in­di­vid­ual was seen tra­vers­ing mul­ti­ple ar­eas of the school build­ing.”

They as­sured that “the prin­ci­pal and staff re­spond­ed prompt­ly, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished safe­ty pro­ce­dures and alert­ing the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties”.

The MOE al­so in­di­cat­ed that it had in­tro­duced in­ter­im mea­sures, stat­ing, “As a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, the Min­istry has ini­ti­at­ed a re­view of the school’s ex­ist­ing se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols. 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 re­mind­ed all school ad­min­is­tra­tors and se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel to re­main vig­i­lant and to en­sure that all safe­ty pro­to­cols are en­forced con­sis­tent­ly.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath in­sist­ed, “Every child de­serves a safe space to learn-free from fear or dis­rup­tion,” and fur­ther not­ed that, “The min­istry will con­tin­ue work­ing with all stake­hold­ers to safe­guard that right.”


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