News

Back-to-school blues

By RASBERT TURNER AND LEIGHTON WILLIAMS, Star Reporters

SPANISH TOWN: THE NEW SCHOOL year got off to a blistering start but students from several schools islandwide were given an extended holiday for one reason or another.

Classes at the Crescent Primary School in St. Catherine were dismissed early on Monday, after a broken pump at the Golden Acres pumping station resulted in the disruption of water supply to the school.

Some of the other schools affected are Bogue Primary in St. Elizabeth, which was not opened because of a protest about poor physical conditions at the school by teachers and Town Head Primary, Westmoreland, where residents protested, calling for secutity measures to be implemented at the school after two students, eight and nine years, were raped and murdered in early June. Repair works were still being done at the Elletson Primary and Infant School in Kingston.

In St. Catherine, the pump which broke down on Saturday affected Strathmore Place of Safety, the G.C. Foster College and Crescent which closed half-day.

When THE STAR visited the school on Monday morning, several teachers complained that since Saturday no water had been there and the five reserve catchment tanks, the school had were dry.

Principal Iris Lewis, said the 85 chickens at the school would die if no water comes quickly. She also said the students need to use water for the washing of hands and flushing of toilets. She promised to call the Rapid Response Unit.

At about 2:15 p.m. THE STAR revisited the institution and saw students going through the gates. Further checks revealed that the water had not come and they had to be sent home.

The National Water Commission's water production team in Spanish Town said since the pump had broken down on Saturday, several areas such as McKoy Land, Avon Park, Golden Acres and surrounding areas had been without water.

Calvert Davis, the water production team leader, said that trucks had been despatched to the affected areas. He told THE STAR that one had been despatched to the Crescent Primary and G.C. Foster from early on Monday morning, however, up to late afternoon, the truck had not arrived.

The STAR learnt that after the schoolers were sent home by the Principal, the truck eventually came.

Meanwhile, though classes at the Whitefield Primary and Maverley Primary and Junior High in St. Andrew and Boundbrook Primary in Portland were not disrupted, officials complained of the lack of birth certificates.

"This is my third year here and every year you have people coming with their children who are six years old and do not have birth certificates because they have not been registered," said Mrs. D. Taylor, Maverley Primary and Junior High School principal. "You have people in grade six who do not have birth certificates. You sometimes give them an ultimatum to get it and then as soon as they get it a new set comes up."