The Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation has also already secured staff for the soon to be opened Oldbury Nursery School.
That’s the word from Chief Education Officer, Karen Best. She told those attending yesterday’s official opening of the Maria Holder Nursery School Gall Hill, located at Church Hill Road, Christ Church, that they are just waiting for the facility, which like the nursery school at Gall Hill is also being built by the Maria Holder Memorial Trust, to be handed over to the Ministry.
Her comments came as she said the Ministry is pleased to offer additional spaces at nursery schools to young children, and values the partnership that has been forged with the Trust which has facilitated the expansion of the provision of Early Childhood Education in this country.
Speaking moments after; Chairman and Co-founder of the Maria Holder Memorial Trust, Christopher Holder, said the nursery school at Oldbury, which will cater to 90 students, is set to be completed by Friday, January 13, 2017, and will be ready to receive pupils by the end of the month. Meanwhile, in relation to the Gall Hill school, he said that it is the largest nursery school with a capacity to educate up to 150 students. These nursery schools, he said, are but two of the six to be built by the Trust.
According to Holder, the schools at Government Hill, St. Michael and Holders Hill, St. James are slated to start construction later this year; while Sayers Court, Christ Church and Deacons, St. Michael, will start construction in 2018. He said the six schools project is expected to be finished by the early part of 2020.
“What this means ladies and gentlemen, Prime Minister, is that every child of nursery age will have the ability to be educated. Now that’s a marvellous achievement for this Government and I am delighted that the Maria Holder Memorial Trust is part of that. We’ll build the schools; the Government has to run them,” he said.
Holder noted that the Trust has also supported the training of nursery school teachers, adding that by June this year some 75 teachers would have been trained through a programme offered by Wheelock College in Boston. He explained that the training included Special Needs Education and he was pleased to note that some of the teachers that were trained are now working at the new Gall Hill nursery school.
“When we agreed to support the Wheelock project, I don’t think the trustees, the project management team thought some of those teachers would actually be teaching at one of our schools, so that is a wonderful achievement,” he stated. (JRT)
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