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  • 11 months ago
Parents of infants attending the St Dominic’s RC Primary School in Penal will be keeping their children away from classes indefinitely, due to serious safety concerns.

This as close to 60 infant pupils are being housed at a church without a security officer on duty, on a daily basis.

Students were displaced over eight years ago when the original school structure was deemed unsafe for occupation and some children were relocated to the St Dominic’s Roman Catholic Church across the road and others sent to the community centre next door.

On Monday, our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh met with parents of the young students to hear their concerns.

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Transcript
00:00Over 8 years ago, the St Dominic's RSC Primary School in Pinal was closed due to infrastructural
00:13issues and its students relocated.
00:16Most of the children are kept at the community centre nearby, but its 57 infant students
00:22are taught out of the St Dominic's RSC Church across the road, a church whose gates remain
00:27open to the public and even operates a school for migrant children to the back.
00:33One of the issues is security, we do not have security on this compound.
00:37So the infants are at risk most of the time, if not all the times, because there is only
00:43four teachers to cater to 57 students.
00:46There was an incident where a mental man came onto the compound, he went down to the back,
00:51so he had full access to the entire compound, he went down to the back, he removed his pants
00:56and I'm in.
00:58The parents say other obvious issues arise out of keeping the children in a church and
01:03not a designated school building.
01:06It cannot accommodate 57 students of the school plus the migrant school.
01:12So it's our 57 plus however much they have there using the same two washrooms.
01:19Inside of this building there used to be AC units installed, but we can't use the AC anymore.
01:26There's a matter of a bill that needs to be paid, they're asking the school to pay it,
01:32the school doesn't have the funds, they're asking the parents to pay it.
01:35The toilets, there's two doorways at the inside of the toilet, those doorways are connected
01:41to the migrant school.
01:43So the migrant children use the same doorway through the toilets that these infants are
01:47using to go to the kitchen, to the kitchen area.
01:51That is also unsafe.
01:53The parents say they have made requests to have a security officer stationed at the church,
01:58but to no avail.
01:59They say that the security, the school has allotted one security officer and that security
02:04officer is currently at the community centre.
02:07While we know we can't get a school in the morning, we need some sort of accommodation.
02:14Should I be containing us down the hill to accommodate the infant students, we just need
02:19that security.
02:21Until something is done by the Ministry of Education to reassure parents of the safety
02:26of their young children, they plan to keep them away.
02:30Children have a right, a right to education, a right to safety, and these are things that
02:35are being compromised on a daily by sending our children here.
02:39So this morning we're making a stand.
02:41We are keeping them home until further notice and until our voices are heard.
02:45We want a new school.
02:47We want a new school.
02:49We want a new school.
02:51We want a new school.
02:53Cindy Raguba Chika Singh, TV6 News.
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