00:00Approximately 100 students from the community of Sisters Road, Newgrant, Princess Town will
00:07enter a newly constructed school when the new school year begins on Monday.
00:12The children were displaced about two years ago when the school was closed due to structural
00:17issues.
00:18The infants to Standard 3 classes were accommodated at the Newgrant Government Primary School
00:24while children in Standards 4 and 5 were housed at the Torib Trace Presbyterian School.
00:29At the Ministry of Education, we believe in equity and educational opportunity.
00:37And from time to time, these things happen.
00:40And what happened at Sisters Road is not singular.
00:44We have other schools where we have difficulties with the building and we have to seek different
00:50accommodations for the children.
00:52The Minister told those gathered for the commissioning of the rebuilt school that it costs around
00:57$6.9 million.
00:59She was scheduled to also attend the commissioning of the Holy Cross Anglican Primary School
01:04in Marabella and the commissioning of refurbishment work on St. George's College in Barataria.
01:10MP for Princess Town, Bari Padarath, who was at the first event, expressed concern about
01:16the government's failure to rebuild the Princess Town Presbyterian No. 1 school, which remains
01:22on a shift system with the Presbyterian No. 2 school for almost 10 years now.
01:28We have government approval to do a school at Presbyterian No. 1, and so that's on our
01:33agenda for the next school, yes, to start construction.
01:37This has been over nine years we've been clamouring for this Princess Town No. 1 school.
01:42Her announcement to members of the media that the school will be reconstructed within the
01:46next financial year, I have no faith, I have no trust, I have no confidence in the Minister
01:50of Education because we have gotten that commitment before and we have seen little or no results
01:55at all.
01:56Meanwhile, Minister Gatsby-Dolley says she has no reports on any school that will remain
02:01closed on Monday as teams are continuing work to ensure that those with complaints are addressed
02:08by that time.
02:09At this point in time, I have no indication that there isn't a school that is going to
02:13be open, but I can tell you that problems at schools happen every single day.
02:17As of now, we are having new reports of schools having issues, some of them still overflowing
02:22from rainfall and so on, so as of now we are working on all complaints that have come to
02:26us.
02:27Hundreds of complaints come to us over the time, and right now we have about 60-something
02:32schools closed.
02:33Cindy Raghuban Tikasingh, TV6 News.
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