P/Town Pres protest again

FOR a second consecutive day, parents and students of Princes Town Presbyterian Primary School No1 were in protest mode yesterday, as they demanded that work should begin on a new pre-fabricated building promised to them by the Ministry of Education since last year.

However, unlike Monday’s demonstration, which was staged at the vacant lot on Edward Street, Princes Town,where the school once stood, yesterday’s protest took place some three miles away, outside the Princes Town Presbyterian Primary School No 2, at Craignish Village, Princes Town.

This school is being used by students from both schools after the demolition of the old Princes Town Presbyterian Primary School No1 in 2015.

At a press conference at the ministry at St Vincent Street, Port of Spain on Monday, Minister Anthony Garcia, in response to questions about Monday’s protest, confirmed that the students would be accommodated at the Princes Town Presbyterian School No 2 because of financial constraints.

Garcia’s statement was not well received by the school’s PTA president Nola Ramjohn-Karim, who said Garcia had not told them about any financial constraints during a meeting at the ministry.

“I heard last night the Minister of Education said he did not have the money right now, and we are not accepting that, because that was never said to us. It is not good enough, because $29 million has been put towards building a facility in Moruga, and you are seeing things being done in other places for millions of dollars. So I can’t understand how a school cannot be built.

“On February 8, 2017, we met with the minister at Education Towers and we had our engineer do up a block plan on how to fit the school on the site, and the minister listened to us. He was very accommodating, and he promised to find the funding to do it. Ramjohn-Karim complained, “He said they have made every effort to ensure that the children are being taught. That is a vague,frivolous statement to make, like you put them in a facility and say, ‘Ok, that is it, they are in a school.”

She said a shift system had been put in place for the Infants department and Standards One and Two of both schools, while the Standards Threes, Fours and Fives had all-day classes.