Minister of Education, Tech-nological and Vocational Training, Santia Bradshaw says environmental prob-lems are plaguing a number of schools in this country.
Piloting the debate in the House of Assembly yesterday morning on a supplementary of $175,000 to complete work at the Ann Hill School, the Minister chided the last administration for not engaging in preventative maintenance of the school plants.
“I often make the joke that I started to feel as though I had become a minister who was responsible for school closures, that if it wasn’t bat droppings or pigeons, or rat infestation, the cowitch was also an annual problem as well – that these were things that could have been addressed over the course of the past decade, but the priorities of the last administration clearly was not focussed on the maintenance and putting [in place] in particular, a proper domestic preventative maintenance programme for the respective institutions under their portfolio,” she stated.
Bradshaw lamented that there has been a “serious decay” of plant and the school environment across the island, which is impacting the education ministry’s budget. Her comments came as she suggested that the ministry is not getting the best spend on its money, noting that the number of productive days being lost is really counterproductive.
“We have teachers that are unable to carry out their duties because often times the environmental factors impact their health and that is not to say we don’t have the problems with the students as well, where they are equally impacted by the state of the school plant. It has become such a serious issue, Madam Chair that the additional funds that have been allocated to the Ministry of Education, have allowed us now to capture what is about 41 schools this year in the Domestic Summer Programme, which in previous years, certainly even last year on coming to office, they only had about 18 that has been allocated,” she stated.
She said while some may argue it is an ambitious feat to be able to do such work over the summer vacation, the work has to be done. She said the ministry cannot afford not to undertake the repair work which is necessary. Her remarks came as she indicated that there was a setback in the start of the summer programme, but she gave the assurance they have now started.
“The reality is not all of the projects take eight weeks, there are some that take seven, there are some that take six, there are some that take three weeks or four weeks. We also have to budget in, in the course of the summer vacation for things that are unforeseen,” she stated.
Minister Bradshaw continued, “We don’t know what awaits us in terms of a hurricane season, so with all the best intentions and wanting to accomplish the Domestic Summer Programme, the realities are that we find ourselves in a situation where we may be able to complete it on time, but the reality is there are some external factors that may also impact on our ability to do so”.
With that in mind, she said there will be some schools that will have to open one to two weeks after the start of the upcoming school term to ensure that that work is completed.
“The reality is that either I allow the work to take place in this particular timeframe so that there is limited disruption during the actual school term – it is one of the other. The other reality we have come to face, is that schools have become year round institutions, schools are no longer closed for the vacation,” she added.
She further told the Lower House that it has been proposed that with the school already divided into zones with building maintenance officers attached to the zones, that an exercise is undertaken where preventative maintenance programmes are deployed zone by zone, allowing the ministry to be in a better position to deal comprehensively with the maintenance of the school plants. This approach too she said, would ensure that someone is accountable for the state of the schools. (JRT)