Hazel: Schools 90 percent ready

EDUCATION Minister Hazel Manning yesterday said 90 percent of the nation’s schools were ready for the opening of the new school term in September. Speaking at the post-Cabinet news conference at White Hall, the minister also disclosed that Cabinet approved the creation of 400 new secondary school teaching positions at a cost of $33 million. “We meet every week to look at the critical issues that would prevent schools from opening in our last meeting, and we were told that 90 percent of the schools are in order,” she said.

Manning said physical upgrades were continuing apace on 162 schools and the ministry brought in four procurement firms to back up work being done by Nipdec, MTS and Petrotrin. “We just have to keep monitoring. Usually we would have a few schools not opening on time and that is normal, but our strategy is always to do the most difficult ones,” Manning said. She added that the Palo Seco Government Secondary School will open on time for the new term. Manning also said the supply of furniture to schools and textbook distribution had gone well this year. The minister said the new teaching positions included 133 for implementation of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), 145 for implementation of the new curricula, 111 to cater for expansions of schools in existence prior to 2000 and 12 for selected SEMP schools. She also disclosed that the results of the May-June CAPE Unit One have been received for 771 students from 19 secondary schools.