Palo Seco parents vent anger on Minister

EDUCATION Minister Hazel Manning, wife of Prime Minister Patrick Manning, walked into a storm of protests, condemnation and angry words when she toured the burnt out Palo Seco Government Secondary school yesterday. The compound, on which a massive tent was erected to temporarily house students displaced by a fire which destroyed the main building, was filled with angry parents of the displaced students, who waited on Manning’s arrival. When the Education Minister arrived at 2 pm, she was met by a group of angry parents who condemned Manning’s Ministry for the tent. The school was destroyed by fire on April 7, and after almost three weeks of daily protests by parents, a decision was made by Education Ministry officials to house students under a large tent on the school’s compound.

But during an inter-faith service on Tuesday, which was to mark the resumption of classes, an unsecured blackboard fell on a female teacher, after strong winds pummelled the tent. The tent is kept secured to the ground by means of heavy concrete boulders. On her first official visit to the school, Manning, after enduring a barrage of jokes, picong and criticism for almost three and a half hours, admitted that the tent was not the proper structure for an atmosphere of learning. “I want to agree with you, that is not the proper structure.

That’s why I came to see for my- self,” Manning admitted. “I want to agree with you that this is not good. As I walked in here this afternoon, I had to ask them to open the flaps, to put up... What are those fans doing there, could we have some industrial fans? I want to agree with you, this is not it,” Manning blurted out. The tent had earlier drawn the wrath of a number of parents, including former principal Carlo Govia, who labelled the tent as an example of the “barrenness of the Ministry of Education.”