West to get plyboard classroom amid slow post-Melissa repair

Western Bureau:

With several schools in western Jamaica still in a state of disrepair, nine months after Hurricane Melissa, the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information’s Region Four has indicated that temporary buildings are being set up at some institutions to facilitate classes ahead of the upcoming school year.

Speaking with The Gleaner yesterday, Dr Michelle Pinnock, the regional director for Region Four, said the temporary structures, including buildings made of plyboards, were necessary because of the inability to secure enough tents for schools whose infrastructural repairs are still ongoing.

“Some schools got tents, but we were not able to secure as many tents as possible, and we have had issues with some of the tents after a while, including with the wind and other matters,” she said.

“In some of the schools, we have put in temporary classrooms, meaning there are timber structures; and we are trying now to put plyboard along the side, and making sure ventilation is there, so that the elements do not come in.

“We learnt from our experiences last year. And where we are not sure that our buildings will be finished and ready for occupying, we are putting in those temporary classrooms, and then we will have class rotations – so the parents will know we are doing from this grade to that grade. Where we are having issues with Internet, we will be able now to do photocopying, so that we can have worksheets available. But what we do not want to do is to put a hold on children’s education.”

DAMAGED SCHOOLS

During the passage of Hurricane Melissa last year, 688 schools across Jamaica sustained varying levels of damage, with 311 of those schools categorised as suffering severe damage. Of that number, 102 school sites under Region Four – which encompasses St James, Hanover and Westmoreland – were classified as having suffered Priority One damage.

Steve Gordon, principal of Manning’s School in Westmoreland, which was one of several schools in the parish badly damaged by Melissa, told The Gleaner that he is hoping for temporary buildings to be set up at the school while repairs continue.

He noted that the catastrophic damage done to the school has not prevented a major influx of applications from students seeking to attend the institution.

“I know there are other schools that would have temporary structures, but currently, we do not have any temporary rooms, and we are hoping that perhaps we can put some on the ground, because all of the structures that we would have started repairing are not ready. Quite a few of the structures will not be ready, particularly because some will be slabbed,” said Gordon.

“Some tents we had been using, they were taken down by a recent freak storm we had here and they are completely destroyed. We are not looking to go back under the tents because the heat is upon us; plus, we realised that we had to have proper flooring.

“However, there is still an overwhelming number of persons who want to come to Manning’s and who we have to be turning back, and we had 150 applications for our grade-seven cohort coming in.”

In the meantime, Pinnock said ongoing school repairs in western Jamaica will not be allowed to prevent students from being ready to start the new school year on September 7.

“I want to assure Jamaicans that even if the infrastructure is not ready, we are going to be starting our teaching and learning because we want to ensure that, here in the west, we are not left behind. We saw that our national exams were held, and everybody had to do the same exams, so we want to make sure that our children are at the forefront,” said Pinnock.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com