MINISTER in the Education Ministry Lisa Morris-Julian has said emergency repairs will begin on the San Juan North Secondary School on Friday, after a student was injured there on Tuesday.
"From the ministry's end, occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) and Petrina Clarke, who is the safety officer at the ministry, visited the school, and MTS has issued emergency work for contractors to start this Friday," Morris-Julian said.
A 13-year-old student was hit on the head by a falling piece of concrete and needed six stitches on Tuesday. Morris-Julian said the last update the ministry received was that he had to stay in hospital overnight for observation and was due to be discharged.
The school is over 40 years old, having been opened in September of 1979.
Though emergency repairs are under way, president of TT Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Antonia De Freitas said the association has been asking for this for years.
"For a number of years, TTUTA has spoken on the need for rehabilitative work at this school and at a number of schools," she said when contacted for comment.
"Generally speaking, when the association raises these matters, the issue with the ministry is lack of funding and resources to be able to the tasks required."
De Freitas added that there are numerous requests from schools for repairs and there has to be a determination with the newly allocated budget. She said attention should be paid to the state of schools and the issue, as a longstanding one, should be addressed accordingly.
"The Ministry of Education has a responsibilty to provide a safe teaching and learning environment, because just as this student was injured, it could have been an educator, a member of the non-teaching staff who could have been injured, and it is not because the administrator of this school or any school would not have tried to get repairs done."
De Freitas called on the ministry to indicate what its maintenance schedule will look like going forward and urged it to stick to it.
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