RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

New fur­ni­ture has been de­liv­ered to the Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School, as the in­sti­tu­tion im­ple­ments a ro­ta­tion sys­tem for stu­dents.

The move oc­curred af­ter par­ents staged a protest over the school’s con­di­tions on Wednes­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the school’s PTA pres­i­dent Na­tal­ie Chat­ter­goon said the ro­ta­tion sys­tem will be in ef­fect un­til Sep­tem­ber 13.

She ex­plained, “Class­es re­sumed on Thurs­day with stu­dents shar­ing desks and chairs. Form Twos are sched­uled for Thurs­day and Fri­day, Form Threes for Mon­day and Tues­day next week, and Form Ones for Wednes­day and Thurs­day of next week. Forms Four, Five and Six will at­tend school dai­ly.”

Chat­ter­goon not­ed that while there was some fur­ni­ture, it was not enough to ac­com­mo­date all stu­dents, lead­ing to the ro­ta­tion sched­ule.

On Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­vealed that sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing for fur­ni­ture was al­lo­cat­ed dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

“While pro­cure­ment is un­der­way, the MoE has col­lab­o­rat­ed with its Nurs­ing De­part­ment and the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T to source sur­plus fur­ni­ture to ad­dress crit­i­cal needs,” she said.

Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so men­tioned that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing to de­ter­mine how the school end­ed up with no fur­ni­ture de­spite be­ing op­er­a­tional two months ago, ahead of the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin recog­nised the wide­spread na­ture of the is­sue, not­ing, “The fur­ni­ture cri­sis at Ma­yaro Sec­ondary is not iso­lat­ed and (sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions) has af­fect­ed schools in oth­er ar­eas as well. This is­sue has per­sist­ed for years due to a lack of fur­ni­ture re­plen­ish­ment.”

He added, “The sit­u­a­tion is se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ing the teach­ing and learn­ing process. TTUTA ful­ly sup­ports the par­ents in their protest and calls for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion by the min­istry to en­sure the prop­er de­liv­ery of the cur­ricu­lum.”