Garcia: San Juan schools on our agenda

“That school(s) is one that is high on our agenda and we are going to move as quickly as possible,” Garcia said in a text message reply to Sunday Newsday yesterday.

He was responding to questions raised by parents and Barataria/San Juan MP Dr Fuad Khan about delays in renovating the schools which share the same compound.

In February 2012, the boys school was closed due to infrastructural problems. In March of that year, the students were temporarily relocated to the St George East district office building in Tunapuna, the same building where students of Febeau Government Primary School were housed for more than a year. The next year, students of the girls school were also relocated to the building.

Renovations were scheduled to be completed in 2016, but work stopped in 2015 and has yet to resume.

On Friday, parents protested outside the abandoned schools, calling on the authorities to complete repairs and to give them an update on the renovations.

A representative of the parents, Joel Scott, said since 2012 buses were provided to shuttle students from San Juan to Tunapuna. However, the schedule of the buses, and the shorter school days meant the children were subjected to shorter hours of school time, no play time, and transportation safety and security challenges. In addition, for the school term so far, fewer buses were sent for the children, resulting in overcrowding in the buses.

Contacted on what he has done to help his constituents, Khan said he sent letters to Garcia, and met with him on several occasions, asking him to address the matter, but was not satisfied with the response.

“The end result of everything is that he (Garcia) did not know when they were going to start, there is a problem with the contractor, and he assured me that things would be done. I asked for a time limit but didn’t get any,” Khan said.

Khan said he will continue to lobby Garcia on the matter.

“I keep the process going but that’s about all I could do,” he said.