New secondary school coming
THE green light has been given and plans are under way for the construction of a new secondary school to start within the first quarter of 2018.
This announcement came from Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, who told The Barbados Advocate during a recent interview that the home for the new secondary school is going to be at Searles, Christ Church.
“We had a lot of hiccups, a lot of issues with that new secondary school, because that was to help ease some of the pressure in schools that had gone over the size that they were actually built for. The closing of Louis Lynch would have compounded that situation,” he said.
Jones also noted that Cabinet has now approved the project, and architects have been notified and are expected to take about five months to produce their plans, to be submitted to the Town and Country Planning department for approval.
“We had bought acres of land, because you know we don’t want to squeeze people up, and that will be a sixth form. The way you position the buildings will be important. Then, you also have to have playing facilities and playing fields and all of that,” Jones said.
The Education Minister informed that the project is being funded through a loan from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
“We also have Wesley Hall to completely rebuild, we have Belmont Primary to completely rebuild and St. Martin’s Mangrove to be completely rebuilt. We have a new one to be built in St. John to take over from Society. Then we have two wings to be built, one at Willkie Cumberbatch and one at St. Philip primary,” he said.
“There is one [wing] to be built at St. Elizabeth Primary, but we are looking at that because the numbers at St. Elizabeth have plummeted now to very small numbers, so the possibility exists, it is not clear in my mind yet, that we might have to do some adjusting in that area ... our task is not to close schools, but to ensure that quality teaching can take place at any kind of facility that we have,” he continued. (AH)