Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Ex­perts work­ing to re­solve an elec­tri­cal prob­lem at St Patrick’s New­town Girls’ RC School say the in­sti­tu­tion is ex­pect­ed to re­open on Mon­day, once re­pairs are com­plet­ed as sched­uled.

The pro­posed re­open­ing date was an­nounced fol­low­ing a meet­ing yes­ter­day in­volv­ing the act­ing prin­ci­pal, the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS), the as­signed con­trac­tor and an elec­tri­cian.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the re­quired ma­te­ri­als are still to be ac­quired and that re­pair work is ex­pect­ed to be­gin this af­ter­noon.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment, Fa­ther David Khan, con­firmed that the elec­tri­cal is­sue forced the clo­sure of the school from last week Thurs­day (Jan­u­ary 8).

“Yes, it is true. Due to the ad­di­tion­al elec­tri­cal ca­pac­i­ty of the school, the bot­tom floor has to be rewired at present,” Fr Khan said via What­sApp.

He ex­plained that the prob­lem was first ob­served last Wednes­day at the Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain school and ac­tion was tak­en im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Safe­ty is al­ways the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty,” he said, adding that the school was closed to al­low for a com­pre­hen­sive in­spec­tion and re­pairs be­fore stu­dents re­turn.

One par­ent, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty and whose child is prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions in March, ex­pressed con­cern that on­line class­es were not im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the clo­sure.

“They just send some work, and the stu­dents are do­ing what they have to do. I am very con­cerned,” she said.

The par­ent added that the sit­u­a­tion would have been eas­i­er for stu­dents if there were an on­line al­ter­na­tive to in-per­son class­es.
She al­so not­ed that the in­fant de­part­ment is lo­cat­ed on the floor where the elec­tri­cal prob­lem oc­curred and said she was grate­ful no child was in­jured.

“Any­thing could have hap­pened,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that on Jan­u­ary 6, an elec­tri­cal fault af­fect­ing the ground floor and prin­ci­pal’s of­fice ini­tial­ly re­sult­ed in a pow­er out­age, with on­ly some out­lets re­main­ing func­tion­al and no light­ing. A par­ent who is an elec­tri­cian con­duct­ed an ini­tial as­sess­ment and im­ple­ment­ed a tem­po­rary fix to re­store elec­tric­i­ty, and a re­port was sub­mit­ted to the School Is­sue Man­age­ment Sys­tem (SIMS).

How­ev­er, the fol­low­ing day, the prob­lem re­sumed, leav­ing half of the ground floor and the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice with­out pow­er.
By Wednes­day, elec­tric­i­ty had re­turned to the pre­vi­ous­ly af­fect­ed ar­eas but dur­ing the af­ter­noon ses­sion, pow­er surges and out­ages oc­curred, and lights on oth­er floors, in­clud­ing the in­fant de­part­ment, be­gan flick­er­ing.

A fur­ther re­port was sub­mit­ted to a se­nior su­per­vi­sor out­lin­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for com­ment but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time. How­ev­er, Fr Khan con­firmed that the min­istry has been in­formed.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe has con­firmed that the union was no­ti­fied of the in­ci­dent and re­ceived a re­port on the is­sue. He added that he un­der­stands the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is ad­dress­ing the mat­ter.