Al-Rawi: We could not have closed schools sooner

RURAL Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi said there could be no anticipation of the effects of the tropical wave which would have necessitated earlier notice of schools closing on Thursday.

Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly was severely criticised on social media for being insensitive and uncaring when she posted on social media about 7 am that schools would be closed for the day owing to the major flooding and heavy showers.

Many parents said this notice was too late as some children had already been dropped off at school. Both Gadsby-Dolly and Al-Rawi have confirmed that school in Trinidad will resume on Friday.

A release from the THA's Division of Education on Thursday evening said all schools on the island will remain closed on Friday and reopen on Monday.

At a virtual media conference, Al-Rawi said the situation was fluid and  decisionswere made in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

“Relative to the position about schools being closed and the notice coming in this morning (from Gadsby-Dolly) as opposed to last night; I want to remind you that we were not dealing with a weather system that was organised.

"What we're dealing with, there's a lot of rain that hit portions of Trinidad, and therefore we could not anticipate what was going to happen. We have to prepare, but you can't just cancel school just like that.”

Al-Rawi said schools can’t be cancelled at every yellow alert, as TT is in the annual hurricane season and the government had to be “really careful” about its decisions, since parts of Trinidad might not have been affected.

“We have to be careful how we monitor our response to schools and other issues, the normalcy of business and schooling operations. The issue of school information, we discussed it this morning at Cabinet.

"Right now, the information is that we're going to continue with schools being in gear tomorrow. We're monitoring, we're managing in the event that reports come back to us as we're constantly feeding back reports.”

He added that the Education Ministry will consult with the Prime Minister if further actions on schools are to be taken.

Asked whether the Prime Minister has visited or will be visiting some of the flood-affected areas, Al-Rawi said no.