From there, the press asked the Deputy PM to comment on the sewage problem that has caused interruption of classes at the Sacred Heart Primary School in Dangriga.
You'll remember how the public health department shut the school down due to the unsanitary conditions for the children. They've missed several days because the infrastructure for their bathrooms have failed, and there is need to make urgent repairs.
Today, DPM Faber called on the management of the school to do their part and get the situation rectified so that the children can get back to learning:
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"These conditions exists and again, there is a partnership. The government's commitment in these schools where we have a partnership with the church in particular is for government to pay 100% of the salary of the primary school teachers and the benefits. The government does not faltered. In the 10 years that I've been minister we've never faltered in making good on that commitment, our part of the bargain. The infrastructure is also something the ministry helps out with but the primary responsibility of the infrastructure and to make sure that those conditions in the environment for the learning for the children are with the management of those schools. And so it is that the management in that case it is the Roman Catholic School. The government helps you know. I don't want anybody to think that the government does not see that as something that it ought to be doing. And we have helped through the Social Investment Fund and through other friendly entities that help us in education. We often get into the business of providing infrastructural support and to help to fix the environment in which children learn. But that is their primary concern and a school of that size and that magnitude where the children are still being charged fees, they ought to be handling that business. Our district manager Dr. Nunez is the person who is dealing with it primarily and as I said, I have not been able to hear a report from her as yet because I was out but I am hoping that the matter will be resolved very shortly and I call on the management to do their part."
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