Equipment valued at $4 million has gone missing from one school district, a source has said.

TV6 News reported this development last night as Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh told reporters yesterday that too much taxpayers’ money is being spent on school security.

Gopeesingh spoke on the issue after Britain’s Prince Edward visited the Belmont Boys’ Roman Catholic Secondary School yesterday.

He repeated his previous comments that the Education Ministry is spending $250 million per year on school security, as he cited one example of the wastage.

“Imagine in one secondary school with six security officers, you spend $2.1 million per year on one school for security. You know what that could do for education of the children?” Gopeesingh said.

He said the ministry wants to change the security being provided with the help of Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago and the company which owns the Flow cable and Internet service.

“TSTT and Columbus Communications, they are two of the organisations which are now looking at providing a marked degree of security at $2,500 per month which as opposed to one security officer, $30,000 per month for one security officer,” Gopeesingh said. It is not known how much was actually paid to each of the six security officers he referred to.

The minister said the TSTT and Columbus communications contract will include armed response and Internet connectivity at one-twelfth the $2.1 million contract cost.

TV6 News also asked the Education Minister about the challenges his ministry has been facing with denominational schools, in light of the recent impasse between the Maha Sabha and the principal of the Tunapuna Hindu School.

He said he had recently raised the issue of the Concordat which governs the relationship between the Education Ministry and the denominational schools with the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association.

Gopeesingh said he will soon be meeting with the 17 denominational school boards on the matter, after having held five previous meetings with them.

“And of course, if they feel there is need for revisit and the general population feels that I will probably have to consider taking a note to Cabinet for Cabinet’s consideration on it and then the way forward whether we need national consultation on it,” Gopeesingh said.

He said of the nation’s 456 primary schools, 350 are denominational while 43 out of the 152 secondary schools are denominational.

The minister said the Government pays for their principals, teachers, bills and repairs.

As such, he says there needs to be a review of their management practices as he is expressing concerns about the performance of these schools.

“Four out of ten Anglican and Catholic Schools are underperforming. One of out five Presbyterian schools is underperforming. The Maha Sabha schools they stumped in the middle with average performance. The ASJA is doing the best,” he said.

Goopeesingh added: “When we have less than one per cent of our students in the SEA making more than 95, only six per cent making more than 90, and one out of two students failing to get 50 per cent and this has been continuing for seven years now. this is unacceptable.”