Teachers and students at a Mahaicony Creek school were left without tap water after cows damaged the pipeline and the headmaster said that is one of many issues at the school that needs to be addressed.

When Stabroek News visited the Gordon Table Primary School recently a few older students and a teacher were busy trying to fix a section of the pipeline that cows had trampled upon and broken. The other students were forced to stay in the top flat as the bottom flat and the yard were covered with cow dung. The teacher and students said cows would invade the compound at nights and “mess up the place and break up the pipelines”.

When this newspaper queried the presence of a water pump on the school’s bridge close to the creek, the teachers said the pump could not work unless the pipelines were fixed adding that luckily some of the pipelines had been installed “underground”.

Headmaster Mohamed Wazir Inshan, who resides at the headteacher’s house in the school’s compound, said he was away on one week’s medical leave and cattle owners “took advantage of the situation”. He said the school’s fence is dilapidated so the cows have easy access. Inshan said he hopes the fence is included for repairs in this year’s budget.

The headmaster said about two years ago he had raised the issue with a previous Region Five regional executive officer (REO) who had promised to provide $600,000 to fix the fence but he learnt that the money was used on another project.

“The zinc on the [headteacher's] house roof is rotten and bats and owls would get in and make a lot of mess,” Inshan said. He said he had returned to the compound the same morning this newspaper visited and when he saw the condition of the house and the school, he felt like leaving immediately. Inshan also said that because of the damage done to the pipeline he was unable to access water at the house.

In addition, Inshan said, one of the trestles for the water tanks needs fixing; the windows on the school need to be reinforced and a rotten post on the stairway needs changing.

In an invited comment REO Floyd France said even if rehabilitative works for the school were not included in this year’s budget the region would use money from its savings to undertake emergency works. He also referred this newspaper to Regional Engineer Dennis Tahal, who said that some repairs were scheduled to be done next year. Tahal said the region received just $2.5 million to fix 72 schools and priority was given to the schools that are more populated and those that are rundown.