October 12, 2016: The Honourable Anthony Garcia, Minister of Education and Dr. the Honourable Lovell Francis, Minister of State in the Ministry of Education have both assured parents and students attending the Santa Flora Government Primary School that their concerns regarding the school will be urgently addressed.
Their assurances came after a small group of parents visited the Ministry of Education on St. Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain on Tuesday 11th October, 2016. The parents noted that the building is in a state of disrepair with non-functioning toilets and other infrastructural problems. They added that their children have been out of school for three weeks and are not receiving an education as a result of the situation.
While addressing the parents, Minister Garcia outlined how he and Dr. Francis intended to address the issue, “I am going to meet the Parliamentary Representative, Ms. Olivierre and we will chat with her. I am going to get in contact with EFCL and other officers of the Ministry of Education and we are going to make sure that things are done in such a way that your children would not have to stay away from school much longer.”
He stressed that both he and Dr. Francis wanted to resolve the problems in the school as soon as possible because they wanted to have the students back in school receiving an education, “Both of us do not like situations to occur when children are out of school. If a child is out of school for one day, that is one day too much and that is retarding the educational progress of the child. So we are going to make sure that the length of stay away from classes is curtailed.”
Dr. Francis also assured the parents, noting that the Ministry of Education is sensitive to their concerns and is moving to ameliorate the situation at Santa Flora Government Primary School. He said, “We are aware of the situation and we have started to put steps in place to make sure that the students are decanted. Added to that, in terms of the continuation of the construction of the school, we are in the process now of starting to pay contractors for work that was done previously, so it is our intention to get that larger project, which is the school, which is unfinished, moving ahead.”
###
For further information please contact: