By Machela Osagboro
While many educators applaud the government’s move to allocate a significant portion of the 2020 Budget towards upgrading some school plants, others are lamenting the fact that their “dilapidated” facilities have seemingly been left off the list.
OBSERVER media spoke to a few teachers who bemoan the fact that their school buildings were falling apart or needed reinforcements and that there was the general need for more classroom space and modernised facilities.
Principal of the Golden Grove Primary School, Tamika Christian said that there are too many buildings on the school compound and not enough space for the children to do activities.
Christian is therefore appealing to the Ministry of Education to find a creative ways when adding buildings to the compound, in order to allow for recreational spaces for 428 students currently attending the small campus.
“I think we have too many buildings on the campus to start with and so the only way out of that is either to go up on the existing building so that children can have their play space,” she said.
Also, a union representative said that teachers at the Jennings and St Mary’s secondary schools have had several meetings with the Antigua and Barbuda Union of Teachers, and have also sent numerous letters to the Ministry requesting an upgrade in their facilities.
I am not only agreeing that Golden Grove School which I attended over 50 years ago like so many other primary schools needs up grading, but with the apparent increase in births and influx of immigrants children , WE NEED NEW SCHOOL’S PLANTS.
WHY increase the numbers of structures on a school plant and hence the school’s roll when maybe it would be more economically viable to build new ones?
I wonder if these additions doesn’t make it more difficult for individual learning and management in those schools.