Education Minister Visits SPHS, New Schools to be Build on North San Pedro
Minister of Education Francis Fonseca also gave an update on the situation at San Pedro High School. As was reportedly last month, there was structural damage to the high school and the ceiling caved. Last week, while attending the Belize Investment Summit, Minister Fonseca made a visit to the institution. He says that repairs are coming for the school, but also said that within the next six months, a project for the construction of a government preschool, primary school and high school on the north side of San Pedro will commence.
Francis Fonseca
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“I visited it and had an opportunity to meet with the teachers, the principal, the board – some members of the board were there – and we reviewed the whole school. They had gotten a private engineer to do an estimate of the works that are necessary. I believe they held a meeting with the parents and the community to discuss the engineer’s findings and recommendations. And so we have pledged to work along with the board and the principal and staff and teachers to see how we can get the place repaired. But the truth is, it is not as bad as it first appeared to be. What really happened, it is a false ceiling that collapsed. It’s not a structural; the entire ceiling. It’s a false ceiling that collapsed, but when that collapsed it revealed some structural deficiencies that will have to be looked at. But I’m also happy to use this opportunity to report that within the next six months – this is a part of the project execution unit of the Ministry of Education – we are going to start the construction of a preschool, a primary school and a government high school. All three government – government preschool, government primary school and a government high school – on the north side of San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. That will start in, I will say, about six months. Obviously that will take about two years to complete, but we are happy and we reported that to the community. We are happy that that project will finally get underway, because that will relieve a lot of the pressures on the existing high school there.”
The value of the project is not known at this time, but Minister Fonseca says that the funding will come from the third phase of CDB Education Project.
