Repairs to start on toilets at Fanny Village Gov’t Primary

by Valdeen Shears

The Fanny Village Government Primary school was on Friday visited by contractors who assured concerned parents repair works are to begin on the infants and boys toilet by early this week.

Parents were notified of the assurances in a social media chat they set up where photos of the”deplorable conditions” at the infants department were posted.

Photos of the boys’ toilet area at the main school, housed in the village’s community center, were also highlighted.

The photos were posted by the frustrated parents, which prompted a visit from Minister in the Ministry of Education, Lovell Francis, MP Edmund Dillon and Point Fortin Mayor Abdon Mason on September 6.

The next day the school was closed by the public health department of the Point Fortin Borough Corporation.

Last week, Francis paid a second visit to the school and assured the parents that repairs would have started on Saturday last.

Shortly after Francis’ second visit, a post from the parents’ chat read: “Good day all parents and guardians...Heads up... We have just returned from a meeting with Miss Brewster (Fanny Village VP), MP Edmund Dillon, Minister Lovell Francis and his engineering crew and consultants, a party of four. There was a walk around of the old school and even the once proposed school that never got completed. Coming out of discussions was that the infants section reconstruction will start this Saturday and completed in one week including the boys’ toilet area, which will aid in school students returning back to continue schooling, and secondly to go forward with rebuilding the old school, which will permanently house all students,”

Another parent expressed the hope that the school would be re-opened by month’s end, while yet another parent posted that the information contained in the chat group was confirmed by Francis when she approached him during a visit at the Egypt Village Government Primary School, Point Fortin.

The school, which caters for over 300 students, was gutted by fire early in 2015 and relocated to the centre. A two-room plywood structure was built adjacent to the center to house the first and second year students.

Shortly after the fire, a project began to rebuild the school on lands directly behind the original structure.

However, that site remains incomplete, after contractors discovered the structure had sunk seven inches.

Since then parents have lobbied for a new school.