Fire of unknown origin yesterday morning destroyed part of the Parfait Harmonie Primary School, West Demerara affecting the more than eighty students who were in the process of writing the Grade Six Mathematics assessment paper.
Chief Education Officer Olato Sam was on the scene of the fire when this newspaper arrived and he said that all of the children were accounted for and are safe. He assured the concerned parents that their children will take the assessment at the beginning of the new school term.
The fire began just before 11am according to Cadet Officer Persaud of the Guyana Fire Service who said that it was one of the students who was writing the assessment who observed smoke coming from a section of the school.
The Cadet Officer said that when they arrived the children had already been evacuated and none of them was hurt. He said the origin of the fire was unknown and was being investigated.
Not only the primary school students will be affected but also the more than 100 nursery school students who were housed there as their building is presently being constructed.
The interior of the section of the school that housed the nursery school students, the school’s library, the office of the primary school’s headmistress and a kitchen were totally destroyed.
The shaken headmistress, Shundell Chichester told this newspaper that she was at her clinic when she got the dreadful news. Her only concern now is what plans would be effected to accommodate the students for the new school term. The classrooms of the school were untouched by the fire.
She said that the school building was only three years old and it housed 525 primary school students and 163 nursery school students.
“This is very shocking and devastating”, she told this newspaper.
“We will reset Mathematics paper two and the Social Studies paper for the children at the beginning of the new term”, Sam told this newspaper at the scene of the fire. The students would have written the Social Studies paper yesterday afternoon.
“The fire started when the pupils were in the process of completing the second part of the Mathematics paper, we have accounted for everyone, everyone is out safely, teachers had a meeting with parents and students and we have ensured that all of them were picked up (by an adult)”, Sam said.
