According to the island’s Free National Movement (FNM) Member of Parliament (MP), Larry Cartwright, while two grades returned to school a few days after the September 4 opening day, all 190 students and their teachers returned to school on Monday.
Mr Cartwright said that the teachers’ fight for proper working conditions has been a three-year battle, with no end in sight.
The MP further stated yesterday, that repairs to the high school were started from the 2003/2004 academic year, but the government has been “dragging its feet” on finishing the job.
“We’ve been fighting since then,” Mr Cartwright said. “I recommended that they should have had the contract out since June 2005, but of course, it wasn’t awarded until this August. It took a whole year just to get the workers and they still aren’t completed.”
In a Letter to the Editor, Mr Cartwright said that one wonders about the priority of the government when “teachers are forced to work for over a year under such adverse conditions…and when students are deprived of the same educational opportunities [as] their peers.”
“Or is this a part of the government’s ‘other look at Long Island’ spoken about by the Prime Minister when he responded to MP Cartwright’s statement signifying his choice to join the FNM?” Mr Cartwright asked.
The government has come under heavy fire over the late school repairs this year, with the FNM labelling the 2006 academic year [as] the “worst opening” ever.
By the September 4 opening date, although most of the schools were said to be ready for occupation, at least two campuses were forced to open a week late, and at A F Adderley Junior High School, students had to be turned away to allow for delayed repairs to be completed.
The government reported that it spent more than $20 million on construction, repair and maintenance work on about 154 schools throughout the country.
But Mr Cartwright believes his constituents have been left out.
“In fact, up to this point, no one from government has said anything about the school; they have not said why the repairs are taking so long,” he said.
NGM Major principal, Machon Cartwright, said even though teachers and students are being forced to work on a construction site, they are trying to cope with the situation.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done, but we can operate [in] the [current] conditions,” the principal said. “There’s quite a bit of work outstanding, but we’re mainly concerned about the teaching.”
The high school principal added that last week, the campus could only accommodate ninth and twelfth graders, but since Monday, the school has “moved full steam ahead with its curriculum,” even though some teachers and students are without their own classrooms.
In the meantime, Mr Cartwright said that even though the school environment is safe enough to house the teachers and students, he was still trying to get to the bottom of the situation.
He added that while the workmen will have to hold off on the “noisy work” during school hours, the work just might take a few more months.
NGM High School caters to students from Gordons in the South to Thompson Bay in the North, noted Mr Cartwright, adding that some students as far North as Glintons, all attend this “highly acclaimed” academic institution.
Director of Communications in the Ministry of Education, Heloise Newbold, told The Guardian yesterday that when the contractor got on the site, he realised he had more work than he bargained for.
“We issued specific scope of works and the work started,” she explained. “While the work was being conducted, the contractor issued requests for additional work which he tried to facilitate, but of course, he was unable to complete the work in a timely fashion.”
The education official could not say when the NGM Major High School would be fully operational.
By:IANTHIA SMITH, The Nassau Guardian
