Residents of Strathspey continued their protest yesterday locking the gates to the school and preventing teachers from entering, resulting in no classes being held.
The residents, joined by students of the Strathspey Primary School, are calling for security measures following the attempted kidnapping of an 11-year-old student on Wednesday. The child was snatched by two men who had taken her out of her class. She later managed to escape with the assistance of residents.
Holding placards which called for the government to deal more seriously with the crime situation, the residents and students once again made their voices heard.
The residents claimed that they did not know who had locked the two gates leading into the schoolyard.
But headmaster Basdeo Singh, said that when he and staff had turned up yesterday they found that the gate was locked with an additional padlock for which they had no key.
It is understood that the headmaster made his teachers sign in their time on a piece of paper and they later left.
The building also houses the nursery school and from reports from residents one of the teachers ducked under the school fence and brought out the time book for that school for them to sign their time.
The residents yesterday said that they would continue their protest until the school was supplied with a security guard and a Ministry of Education official came and spoke to the children.
They pointed out that children who were in school at the time of the attempted kidnapping were traumatised and needed some counselling to get over the event.
Stabroek News was unable to get a comment from senior officials at the Ministry of Education. Permanent Secretary Hydar Ally was said to have been in a meeting and the officer in charge of primary schools directed this newspaper to the Region Four Education Office. When contact was made with this official, the paper was told that the Regional Education Officer was out and no one else was allowed to speak. The headmaster, who has only been there for three weeks, had reported that he had seen four letters that had been sent to the regional officer by his predecessor requesting security personnel.