The management of South Taveuni Primary School and South Taveuni Secondary School has revealed that the cost of damage to their schools is close to half a million dollars.

The schools are situated in the district of Vuna on the Southern side of Taveuni Island.

Management chairman for both schools, Eric Narayan, told the Fiji Sun yesterday that Cyclone Winston had spared nothing.

“For primary school the student roll was over 500 with 23 teachers and in the secondary school there were 230 students and 16 teachers,” Mr Narayan said.

“The schools’ roofs have been blown away; furniture, computers, copier and all learning materials have been destroyed.

“We don’t know how to rebuild the schools and we don’t know how to arrange temporary shelter to resume classes.

“Over the weekend, a team from Ministry of Education visited our schools to carry out assessment but they havn’t informed us of any assistance yet.

“Nevertheless, our management will gather today (yesterday) for a meeting to discuss how to create a temporary safe educational environment for our children to continue with classes because we don’t want our children to be left behind,” he said.

“While we make every effort, I would like to humbly request the Government to help us in any possible to send our children back to school.”

Mr Narayan also said there were six teachers’ quarters with two being destroyed and four which had their roofs blown away.

“The teachers for one week have been staying together in one classroom at the primary school.

“We are very helpless at this moment but we are trying our best to provide whatever we can both to our teachers and students.”

Edited by Jonathan Bryce

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