Garcia: $25.5m for school repairs

Education Minister Anthony Garcia on Wednesday said 194 primary and secondary schools have been earmarked for repairs, but only 119 schools will be repaired during the remainder of the vacation.

Garcia said school repairs will cost $25.5 million.

“We are well on our way with school repairs so far,” Garcia said.

Some of the projects are small ones and the repairs will not affect the reopening of schools for the new school term, he said.

“We want to make sure that when school reopens, all schools are in a state of readiness to accept our children. We might not complete all the schools, but that does not mean schools will not be open on time.

"Some of the schools have minor repairs to be done. For example, a drain has to be done, a fence might have to be repaired and so on.

“We recognise because of the enormity (sic) of the task we might not be able to complete all repairs to these schools but we want to make sure the schools are habitable so that the students would have access to the education facilities. If there are other finishing touches that needs to be done they will be done during the weekend period or ongoing.”

Garcia said more than 50 per cent of schools are old, and it is the ministry’s mandate to ensure they are up to standard.

Of the schools affected by last year’s 6.8 magnitude earthquake, he said all have been attended to except one, which he refused to name. He said the children of the affected school will be housed elsewhere and the school will operate as usual.