Calcutta Government School Breaks Ground for New Building

Calcutta Government School is getting a new school building. They have only just broken ground to indicate a commitment for the building, but the school’s management is celebrating it as an accomplishment as they have been waiting for a new building for a decade. Here’s the story.

Julius Casmiro, Local Manager

“We gather here to celebrate the achievement and accomplishment to witness the historic ground breaking ceremony for the construction of a long awaited primary school and pre-school buildings for Calcutta Government School.”

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

For ten years Calcutta Government School has been waiting for a new school building and on Thursday they broke ground to make it happen.

Julius Casmiro

Julius Casmiro

“It took the school an entire decade in waiting before this state of the art project was realized. During the waiting process, the school went through its challenges and tribulations but not once did we lost hope and faith. We all waited patiently for this day to come.”

The new school building will have seven classrooms made of ferro concrete and will feature a library, computer room, restrooms, kitchen and lunchroom. The project will also equip the school with computer and other equipment to support teaching. The project is being implemented by SIF on behalf of the government.

William Lamb Jr.

William Lamb Jr., Executive Director, SIF

“It is going to a five classroom building for the primary school and one of the classrooms is for pre-school. We know that our pre-schoolers are different in height and so on so we have that those be specific so that they can use quite properly so that the space for their classroom is set up different and all of that has been put into the design. For this project we also have training for different areas in the community and in the school that will help to improve the quality of learning here at the school.”

The Calcutta Government School serves four villages; Calcutta, Ranchito, San Joaquin and Carolina. There are approximately ninety primary school students and ten pre-schoolers who attend this school. According to Principal Virginia Ek, this new building will make a big difference in the lives of the teachers and students.

Virginia Ek

Virginia Ek, Principal, Calcutta Government School

“The new building will be conducive for learning. Students and teachers will be motivated by a good learning environment. Schools are places of work as well as places of learning and our new school will be able to retain high quality staff. Schools that are adequately built are led to higher student concentration and energy levels since students’ moods are influenced by basic environmental factors such as light, air quality and temperature.”

Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.