‘Shift system’ continues in new school year—Hon Walwyn
This obtains, since repairs to the ‘L-Shaped’ building at the Elmore Stoutt High School (ESHS), is yet to be completed, despite being listed as priority for monies secured under a Caribbean Development Bank’s CDB) loan secured by the Virgin Islands government.
Work is also yet to be completed at the Bregado Flax Education Centre (BFEC) and students from Cane Garden Bay will continue to attend school at Leonora Delville, “as we are still working through a number of things at the Ivan Dawson School.”
Tents
The damning state of affairs was laid bare on Monday, September 10, 2018, when the Ministry for Education and Culture hosted its annual ‘Professional Development Meeting' where all of the Territory’s educators met to discuss plans for the 2018-2019 school year.
Venued at the Eileen Parsons Auditorium in the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College (HLSCC), Minister for Education and Culture, Honourable Myron V. Walwyn (AL) told those present, “unfortunately, the shift system will continue a little longer at the secondary level, as we work to get the L-Shaped building at the ESHS campus completed, as well as the BFEC Secondary school.”
Hon Walwyn in July last, had told House of Assembly (HoA) members, “…of the monies available (CDB Loan), the vast amount will go towards the Elmore Stoutt High School L-Shaped building and the Bregado Flax Educational Centre (Secondary Division) as these are the most urgent at this time.”
He said publicly last year that ESHS would be completed for the begining of the new school year.
Leonora Delville Primary
In his meeting with the Territory’s educators, the Minister also reported that work at the Leonora Delville Primary school is advancing and “we are hopeful that the school will be ready for occupancy by the beginning of the school term.”
He lamented that during the past year, “we suffered many setbacks with this project, particularly with the availability of essential materials to rebuild the school.”
He reported that at present, electrical works are being completed and the painting of the interior and exterior of the school should be on the way as we speak.”
Rains & Floods
The Minister noted too, “the most recent rains made it clear that there is need to take another look at the plans to ensure that the school does not continue to have these reoccurring flooding issues.”
He said “the volunteers working there had assured us that it would be completed for the opening of school but with the recent flooding I would rather have our students in an environment free from flooding and therefore we are working on getting this rectified as best we can.”
Recently Minister Walwyn also came under fire for a percieved wastage of $1.6M of tax payers money, by sections of civil society, in relation to the construction of a small wall at ESHS.
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