The Education Ministry does not have the money required to do all the necessary repairs to all schools in T&T.
This was revealed by Education Minister, Dr Nyan Gadsby, during an interview with i95.5 on Tuesday.
She addressed concerns about incomplete repairs and the lack of readiness of several schools at the start of the school year yesterday.
Gadsby-Dolly said the majority of the ministry’s budget is used to pay salaries for teachers and ministry staff, leaving the ministry with just $150 million to spend on school repairs, which is insufficient.
She said: “We depend on the Ministry (of Finance). The facts are that our school repair budget was exceeded by the time we got to the vacation. All the monies for repairs were spent, so we had to receive additional funding.” She confirmed that additional funding had been requested.
The Minister said as many of the schools in Trinidad and Tobago are more than 50 years old, and some even more than a century old, school repairs are always ongoing.
She said three main issues can result in a school not being able to open on time, and these are a priority when deciding which repairs to undertake.
These are sewer, electrical and plumbing.
Gadsby-Dolly said because they don’t have the funds to do all the repairs in the country, they will do like a triage and repair the most important things.
She also asserted that the same problem was experienced at the start of every school year.
But this year it was being blown out of proportion as it was an election year.