Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly says the min­istry has com­plet­ed 13 of 80 schools which the Gov­ern­ment met un­fin­ished. She al­so said sev­en more schools are be­ing done now as she em­pathised with UNC MP’s con­cerns about in­com­plete schools.

Gads­by-Dol­ly in­di­cat­ed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee de­lib­er­a­tions on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s $6.1B al­lo­ca­tion in the 2024 Bud­get. She was braced with ap­peals from UNC MPs for the com­ple­tion of out­stand­ing schools and Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) cen­tres.

 It start­ed with UNC MP David Lee’s query on Mara­bel­la EC­CE cen­tre, out­stand­ing for sev­er­al years. Lee sought the sta­tus and when it would be opened.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “My good friend, I know he’s al­ways ad­vo­cat­ing for his con­stituen­cy.” But she said there are quite a num­ber of schools that are known as ‘built’ schools but are not oc­cu­pied–like the Mara­bel­la EC­CE cen­tre as it is not com­plete.

 “There are in­fra­struc­tur­al things that must be com­plet­ed and al­so pay­ments that must be com­plet­ed. So when these schools are ad­ver­tised as be­ing ‘built’, that’s a tes­ta­ment to the fact that they’re not com­plet­ed schools. Though I un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion the MP is in and some of the oth­er MPs as well as some MPs on our side, we do have to bud­get for the com­ple­tion of these schools.”

  She said Mara­bel­la EC­CE was one of the 80 schools which was in­com­plete. “We com­plet­ed 13 of these, we’re com­plet­ing an­oth­er sev­en. That has cost us close to $1B al­ready and once these sev­en are com­plet­ed, then we’ll at­tempt to com­plete an­oth­er phase of the schools which may in­clude (Lee’s) school. But there are quite a num­ber that we’ve been al­lo­cat­ing fund­ing for and com­plet­ing as we can.

 “So MP, I do hear your con­cern and your cry for the Mara­bel­la EC­CE and I’ll com­mit to do­ing as best I can to get that in­to the next phase.”

 Lee said the school was close to open­ing in 2015 and con­stituents see a school that looks built yet he could not give them an­swers on what is de­lay­ing open­ing.

 Gads­by-Dol­ly replied, “I un­der­stand com­plete­ly and I em­pathise with the sit­u­a­tion and we’ll do as best we can. But we can’t fin­ish them all at the same time be­cause the fund­ing will be over­whelm­ing. We’ll do our best as we have been, to fin­ish them batch by batch.”

 Oth­er UNC MPs queried the com­ple­tion of schools. Gads­by-Dol­ly told UNC’s Van­dana Mo­hit that un­der a cur­rent fund­ing item, the min­istry was aim­ing to as­sist schools in­clud­ing Clax­ton Bay Ju­nior, Sis­ters Road and Brighton An­gli­can schools and Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian  No 2. But Long­denville Pres­by­ter­ian was not in that line item.

She said if they can ad­dress it, they will, but the oth­er four were pri­or­i­ties to com­plete. How­ev­er, she was open to talks on al­ter­na­tive lo­ca­tions for Long­denville stu­dents.

Gads­by-Dol­ly told UNC’s Roodal Mooni­lal that Ra­mai Trace Hin­du School was 99 per cent com­plet­ed and should be opened be­fore the year’s end.

De­tails of the fur­ni­ture are be­ing worked out, she added

She promised to give UNC’s Rod­ney Charles an up­date in writ­ing on what is be­ing done at the long-out­stand­ing Re­form Hin­du School.

Preysal Gov­ern­ment School will be con­sid­ered for Phase Three work. The min­istry will ex­am­ine Wa­ter­loo and Or­ange Val­ley EC­CE cen­tres and work on solv­ing Or­ange Val­ley Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry’s sew­er prob­lem. The Curepe Pres­by­ter­ian School’s au­di­to­ri­um is 66 per cent com­plete and class­rooms will be fo­cused on af­ter. The con­trac­tor for Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary School’s ma­jor up­grades should be as­signed soon.

Probe on Princes Town West stu­dents told to ‘bring own fur­ni­ture’

Mean­while, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter said that stu­dents should not be told to “bring their own fur­ni­ture” to use at school, and the min­istry will in­ves­ti­gate re­ports of this hap­pen­ing at Princes Town West Sec­ondary School.

 Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed this af­ter UNC MP Ani­ta Haynes spoke of the sit­u­a­tion at the Princes Town West Sec­ondary School.

Haynes said, “I’ve been giv­en some re­ports of an alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion at the Princes Town West Sec­ondary with re­spect to fur­ni­ture and stu­dents hav­ing been told that the ex­pec­ta­tion is that they bring in their fur­ni­ture so they can have a desk and chair to be utilised.”

The min­istry’s 2024 fund­ing es­ti­mate will cov­er the com­mit­ment of $2.7M for fur­ni­ture which is on or­der.

She added,  “That is not some­thing that should be said to stu­dents and cer­tain­ly we will in­ves­ti­gate what’s hap­pen­ing there. But we do have fur­ni­ture on or­der to the tune of $2.7M.”

$1 in­crease for box lunch­es

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so con­firmed the min­istry ap­proved a $1 in­crease for Na­tion­al Di­etary Schools’ lunch providers. Mon­ey is al­lo­cat­ed for pay­ing sec­ondary/pri­ma­ry staff back pay be­fore year-end.