Parents protest deplorable conditions at Patentia Secondary School
Students of Patentia Secondary protesting the poor state of the school on Thursday
Students of Patentia Secondary protesting the poor state of the school on Thursday

Parents, students, and teachers of Patentia Secondary School, West Bank Demerara, staged a picketing exercise on Thursday, calling for issues such as wood ants and bat infestation to be urgently addressed.The protest bore fruit as soon after representatives from the Education Ministry, including Regional Education Officer, Penelope McIntosh, arrived on the scene, all too glad to provide a temporary solution to the situation.
She met with the teachers in a classroom at the neighbouring Patentia Primary School and offered that affected areas be temporarily closed, and pleaded with the teachers to return to duty.
The teachers complied and McIntosh declined to comment on the situation when approached by the Guyana Chronicle.
Parents on Thursday locked the school gates in protest over the conditions of the school which have not been fixed even though complaints were made since last September.
In support, the students held up placards saying “No More Wood Ants”, “We Need Proper Environments”, “Fix Our Toilets” and “Flies and Mosquitos Live at Patentia Secondary School”.
The school has a student population of some 800.
The protesting teachers also refused to comment on the issues affecting them, saying it is against protocol for them to do so, but Parent Teacher Association (PTA) President Colin Williams was not prepared to be silent.
“The teachers teaching [and] bat dung coming down on them, the children eating in the same room and these kind of things, and we can’t encourage that any longer. This been going on for quite a long time, the headmistress said she call umpteen times,” Colin conveyed.
Only recently the PTA prevented a bee invasion.
On the issue of the bats, Williams indicated that the Education Ministry did come before to address the matter, but what was done has left much to be desired.
They simply removed the ceiling but did not deal with the bats, and that only resulted in less obstruction for the bats as they roamed, the PTA President said.
Several classrooms were also affected by termites. This aside, there were several overflowing garbage bins and heaps of garbage at one of the entrances to the school.
Patentia Secondary School has a large yard space meant to be a playfield but it is taken over by thick vegetation.

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