While discussing the issue of resumption of school for Grenadines students, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves disclosed what the Government had planned to ensure that the education of those students will continue without disruption.
The Prime Minister, while speaking on the Issue At Hand program on Sunday, said that in the case of Canouan, if power is restored in the village by the end of next week, there would be a need for the roofs of the schools to be restored to facilitate the resumption of classes in time for the new term. He said the same would need to be done for the primary school on Mayreau.
However, when speaking of the schools on Union Island he said it would be unlikely that those schools would be repaired in time for the new term. As result, the Prime Minister said that the former Richmond Gabriel Campus at Arnos Vale will house both primary and secondary schools.
“You have in Union Island Secondary School; 202 students and you have in the two primary schools about 250 students. In all told, you have approximately 450 students. It is unlikely that we will get those schools up back because of the other things which would be necessary in the community, including housing.
So what we are doing, we are putting money in the estimates, in the supplementary estimates, to fix up and extend the old teachers college which Richmond Gabriel University was in, and extend it. I have primary on one side. We’ll have to combine the two primary schools.
It’s no problem, it’s no problem putting 250 students in one primary school. You know what I mean? Because we have schools on the mainland far larger than that. But we’ll have to bring up the teachers. Many of them are down there. Many of them are from Union Island. And we have to have at least one parent.” He said.
The Prime Minister said that he had asked the Ministry of Tourism to lease several guest houses to accommodate, for the next ten months, students, parents and teachers from Union Island.
