$20 Million to Repair Secondary Schools

An allocation of $20 million has been made in this year’s budget to repair and rehabilitate three secondary schools, and prepare bills of quantity and bid documents for three other sites.

This is being done under a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project, which will repair and rehabilitate a total of six secondary schools, which were damaged by Tropical Storm Nichole in 2010.

As set out in the Estimates of Expenditure, which are now before the House of Representatives, the project has, up to February 2012, seen the preparation of design drawings and bid documents for five schools; the advertising of tenders for four schools; and received approval to award one contract to effect repairs.  The project is slated to end in March 2013.

Meanwhile, $28.3 million has also been set aside for a project to improve the Japanese language learning equipment at the University of the West Indies.

This is expected to upgrade the course, and increase the number of students studying that language at the institution. Specifically, during the fiscal year, furniture will be procured and installed, along with equipment and computer software for the Japanese language unit.

By Alphea Saunders, JIS Senior Reporter