Accommodation for the displaced students of the burnt One Mile Primary School is a priority for the government, according to Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira, who says that education officials will be meeting parents and teachers tomorrow to work out arrangements for their placement when school reopens on September 3.
“The number one priority is the accommodation of the 830 children so that they can start school as quickly as possible and I know that [Education] Minister (Priya) Manickchand has her heart and soul working on that… this would be a natural next step… I believe in moving things forward and returning to normalcy as quickly as possible,” Teixeira said in a Government Information Agency (GINA) statement on Friday night.
Her comment came hours after the Minister of Education in a media advisory said that officials will be holding a meeting with parents and teachers of the school at 11 as on Monday. The venue would be the Wismar Hill Primary School. Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon, in an invited comment, told Stabroek News that the Education Ministry is involved in the decision making and he said he did meet with Manickchand about “placement” of the students.
He said that Monday’s meeting will address the assigning of pupils to different areas, including other schools or the proposed idea of a church building.
On rebuilding, Solomon said that the ministry is willing to engage in that process and the residents “are going to advance that position that they would take the opportunity to rebuild the school.”
He said that the region has acknowledged that the ministry is the principal, in terms of management of the project, “but at the end of the day it is the people of Linden and Region Ten that committed themselves and will be committed to rebuilding that school”.
Last Sunday around 3 am, the primary school was destroyed by men who stormed the compound and informed security guards on duty that they were in the “struggle,” according to acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell, who said two men were arrested in connection with the arson.
It was reported that the men had bottles of gasoline in their possession and it was residents who apprehended one of the suspects and handed him over to a soldier. It is unclear how the second man was detained.
Both men have been released owing to the lack of evidence to lay charges against them.
