Pub­lic health per­son­nel from the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PTRC) re­turned to the Palmyra Hin­du SDMS Pri­ma­ry School (PH­SPS) yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Mon­day’s clo­sure due to a rat in­fes­ta­tion.

PTRC chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine said per­son­nel had set ro­dent baits at the school twice dur­ing the Au­gust hol­i­days. Roop­nar­ine said the PTRC’s doc­tor ac­com­pa­nied a pub­lic health of­fi­cer and met with school of­fi­cials yes­ter­day to de­ter­mine whether there was a need to con­tin­ue bait­ing the rats un­til the in­fes­ta­tion end­ed. How­ev­er, he said he is ex­pect­ed to get feed­back from the site vis­it by to­day. He not­ed that while the PTRC as­sists when the schools re­quire help to clean premis­es, it is not the cor­po­ra­tion’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

While thou­sands of stu­dents re­turned to class­rooms on Mon­day for the first day of the school year, par­ents had to re­trieve their chil­dren from the PH­SPS with­in an hour of drop­ping them off.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said a stench em­anat­ed from one of the an­nexed rooms when staff re­port­ed for du­ty last Thurs­day. The prin­ci­pal con­tact­ed a Pub­lic Health In­spec­tor the fol­low­ing day to re­port the sit­u­a­tion and re­quest­ed a vis­it. A pri­vate con­trac­tor fu­mi­gat­ed the class­rooms last Sat­ur­day, and per­son­nel cleaned and sani­tised on Sun­day. When staff and stu­dents re­turned on Mon­day, how­ev­er, they de­tect­ed a stench again.

Par­ents told Guardian Me­dia that on­line class­es are a con­sid­er­a­tion, as there was no in­di­ca­tion of when the school will re­open.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said on Mon­day that Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry of­fi­cials were li­ais­ing with the PTRC to take fur­ther steps to ad­dress the mat­ter and will com­mu­ni­cate the de­ci­sions tak­en to all par­ents.

While Roop­nar­ine could not con­firm there were rat car­cass­es at the school, he said this must be the case if the baits are work­ing, as there are re­ports of stench em­a­nat­ing on the com­pound. How­ev­er, he could not say when the school would be safe for oc­cu­pa­tion.

“If we bait the rats and they die, but the sur­round­ings or the school has old de­bris for a rat in­fes­ta­tion to con­tin­ue to de­vel­op, it will con­tin­ue. So the school has to en­sure the sur­round­ings are prop­er­ly cleaned,” Roop­nar­ine said.

Roop­nar­ine said the PTRC was not re­spon­si­ble for clear­ing school com­pounds and peo­ple’s pri­vate prop­er­ties. While the school has a prob­lem, he said there were no ma­jor com­plaints about rats from the com­mu­ni­ty and the school in­fes­ta­tion was new. He said rat bait­ing was a dai­ly func­tion of the PTRC, but there were no re­quests from any homes in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Mean­while, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj said stu­dents will switch to on­line class­es when the School Su­per­vi­sor gives the go-ahead, which should take place with­in 24 to 48 hours of his re­sponse. Ma­haraj said he was sat­is­fied with the re­open­ing of schools, as 42 of 43 SDMS schools had re­sumed class­es. He said he is al­so wait­ing on the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and min­istry to fill va­can­cies in schools.