Santa Rosa toilet bowl politics… PTA will accept sanitary block for children’s safety

Oct 02, 2008 News

The Parent-teacher Association of the Santa Rosa School yesterday held an emergency meeting to determine a way forward as it relates to the issue of the toilets that the AFC donated.
The meeting was held in light of a statement made by Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, who said that the PTA should not accept the donation and that the ACF was only looking to score political points.
Minister Baksh also said that the correct procedure was for the AFC to seek permission from the Education Ministry to construct any sanitary block at the school.
Chairman of the PTA, Mark Atkinson, told this newspaper that it was not a matter of politics; rather, it was the matter of the safety of the hundreds of children.
He noted also that the PTA has issued a call for Baksh to visit the school and hold a meeting with the PTA to tell them something “concrete” as to why they should not accept the donation.
The issue of pit latrines at public schools sparked a heated public debate when nine-year-old Tenesha De Souza died after she fell into a latrine at Santa Rosa on her first day at school.
After the child died, the PTA issued a release asking for assistance to install flush toilets at the school and the AFC responded.
This did not hold well with Baksh who told media operatives that the AFC would not have been allowed to donate to the school unless it got permission from the school management, the education department, the regional administration and ultimately the Ministry of Education.