Last night we reported that students in the St. Peter Claver standard six class in Punta Gorda were being made to endure classes in a room with an asbestos roof. Well, turns out, they weren’t. Though there was a huge uproar about it in the town because that’s what was planned –the Ministry of Education intervened before that could happen. The story around PG was that the students who are in a temporary building known as the SB Daniels Center were going to have to be moved from that building to make room for the fourth formers sitting the CXC. Well, the Ministry found somewhere else for them to do that CXC and thus no move is necessary. Arlette Gomez the public relations officer of the Ministry of Education explained how they took pre-emptive measures.
Arlette Gomez, PR Officer – Ministry of Education
“I think some word came out that the children were going to be put back into the classrooms with the asbestos roofings to accommodate the high school students who would be taken the CXC examinations but that is not true. That has never happened. When we realized that was the same center that would have been used for the CXC examinations we went ahead and made alternate arrangements for the students to sit their CXC exams at Julian Cho Technical High School. What we are doing is trying to get all the parties involved to see how we can accommodate the children in the center and try and find a long term solution to the problem.
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It is a church state partnership and in that partnership we have the government who pays the salaries and the church or the management of the school is responsible for infrastructure and teaching aid and materials and anything of that sort. But having said that Jules, the Ministry of Education does recognize that there are some health risks for the students of that school and for the larger population that is in that area. According to the Ministry of Health, it is not just going in there and ripping off the roof because the dust will then get into the air and the particles will affect the neighbours and the people that live in the area. So everybody needs to sit down and we need to come up with a comprehensive plan to ensure that the health risks are minimized as much as possible.”
Long term, the St. Peter Claver management is hoping to get two buildings from Holy Ghost School in Stann Creek. Presently, moving those buildings is the problem.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
