BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - FOLLOWING weeks of complaints and people speaking out about the Basseterre High School’s contamination issue, Education Minister Sen. Hon. Nigel Carty has indicated that the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) would be returning to the Federation to conduct tests again.
Speaking on the talk show ‘Issues’ on Monday (Mar. 24), Minister Carty disclosed that instructions were given to the Chief Education Officer "to have CARIRI back in as soon as possible".
He revealed there was an agreement that the Ministry of Education "probably" did not convey to the Institute exactly what the school said its issues were, adding that to avoid this miscommunication again, all stakeholders would have the opportunity to speak with CARIRI.
"So before CARIRI returns to actually do testing, we would want to have some engagement dialogue with them in the multi-stakeholder forum so that they could probably understand what are the views of all of the stakeholders around the table," he explained.
Thos stakeholders, he explained, include parents, teachers, students and Ministry officials who would gather with CARIRI and discuss the challenges, problems and make suggestions "so that there could be a faithful transmission of the feelings and views and ideas of persons from these various stakeholder groups to CARIRI, and for them to take those into consideration and to draft terms of reference to address the issues which are raised".
Minister Carty disclosed that the Ministry of Education has not yet received any clinical documents in relation to the health issues being experienced at BHS.
"The Ministry of Education and various other Ministries - Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Works - have taken some very important steps to face this process. In that we have never been able to quantify a number of persons who were indicating that they were having symptoms.
"We have never been able to identify the full spectrum of symptoms which people indicated that they were experiencing, and we have never had the benefit of medical doctors indicating to us what could be the potential problems."
He said his Ministry communicated to the BHS staff that it was "unreasonable" for them to spend millions of dollars conducting tests when there were no clinical proof of any problem linked to the school.
"And we said to the staff that it was very unreasonable that having taken those steps of faith in terms of bringing in CARIRI, investing $5M, testing time and time again, doing little things here and there as issues arose, and even after all of that we in the Ministry and in the government have not had the basic opportunity to put together a clinical profile so as to be able to get to the root of any problem, if one does exist and is linked to the school."
Background Information
The contamination issue is one that arose in November 2012 when teachers took industrial action after nothing was being done to satisfy the complaints they were making about itchy and burning eyes and skins, dizziness, nausea and respiratory problems.
There was much attention given to the matter and - with the laboratories believed to have been the centre of the contamination issue - the Ministry of Education tried to have it rectified.
However, the root cause of the problem was never declared and, according to reports, suggestions were that the issue originated from septic tanks which were not properly maintained.
Parents also raised serious concerns about the matter and openly expressed that they agreed with the teachers’ industrial action, indicating that they would stand behind them in any other action they would have taken.
The school was closed from late November 2012 to mid-January 2013 and agreements were made following visitations by experts of the Trinidad-based CARIRI and several meetings among the Ministry, teachers and parents of the school.
Measures were taken to have the school returned to a state of normalcy in January 2013, prior to the reopening of the western campus.
These measures had included the power-washing of all areas affected by excessive dust and mould; repairing of structural defects in the roof, walls and pillars; and having the buildings gutted, removing all wooden, leaky and wet structures.
