57 Priority One Schools Fully Repaired

The Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information is reporting that 57 priority one schools damaged by Hurricane Melissa have been fully repaired.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr. Kasan Troupe, made the disclosure during a post-Cabinet press briefing, held at Jamaica House on September 9.

“We started September with 57 of those difficult schools fully completed. The report from the technical team is that another 95 schools will be fully completed by the end of September and another 34 schools will be fully completed by the end of December,” Dr. Troupe said.

“So, we are looking at 60 per cent of the badly damaged schools ready by the end of the first term of the new academic year. That’s tremendous work, and you can rely on us, repose your confidence in this technical team in the central ministry. We are working hard to make this happen,” she added.

Dr. Troupe reiterated that schools that are badly damaged will take 24 months to be completed, while adding that the new standards are up and running and have been reviewed by the World Bank.

“So, we are building back better; it will take some time. We regret the difficulties that you have seen out there. We do not want these things for all learners, but education is a team sport. We will need all hands on deck, so parents, we crave your patience. Teachers require your patience. We are working assiduously to ensure that the learning environment and the working condition of the teacher is comfortable and welcoming,” she said.

Dr. Troupe also mentioned that the Ministry has worked hard to get the necessary funding out to schools, noting that 30 per cent of the increased grants were distributed to schools in June.

“The second tranche of that was due the first Friday in September, and two weeks ago, we ensured that all the funds were out in all our schools. So, we are ahead of time because we understand what it means for our principals to have monies to get the work done. That amounted to $3.05 billion that we have disbursed to our schools, and that will treat with the operations, that will treat with the nutritional support for the learners, and of course, an additional $75 million will be sent out to our schools to impact 275 schools to treat with canteen repairs,” she stated.

As it relates to furniture, Dr. Troupe said 41 schools indicated that they need additional support, and that the Ministry is responding to the need.

She further informed that in preparation for this academic year, the Ministry spent $300 million to get furniture out into schools.

“So, before we started, we distributed over 17,000 pieces and whilst we were wrapping up on the last weekend, there were 8,000 pieces that we were distributing across our schools. We have had to order additional materials, so another 20,000 pieces of furniture are being prepared for distribution to the system,” she stated.

The Permanent Secretary said the Ministry also finalised contracts with some book suppliers and “we will be making the rounds to provide the top-ups for our high schools”.

“We are spending over $700 million in resourcing our high schools and over $300 million for resourcing of our primary schools. This is about $1.1 billion of expenditure that the Government is investing in providing books for our system,” Dr. Troupe said.

She added that overall, the Ministry is looking to invest $3.2 billion in resourcing of learning alone this academic year.