The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says all 279 gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools se­lect­ed for up­grades will be ready to wel­come stu­dents when the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 8.

The min­istry said 246 schools have com­plet­ed their full scope of re­pair works, while 25 are in the fi­nal stages of up­grades. Of­fi­cials stressed that the on­go­ing works will not af­fect re­open­ing, as mea­sures have been put in place to en­sure safe­ty and com­fort for stu­dents and staff.

Eight oth­er schools were ad­dressed through tar­get­ed projects, cor­po­rate part­ner­ships and emer­gency re­pair in­ter­ven­tions.

The schools still un­der­go­ing up­grades are spread across six dis­tricts:

Ca­roni Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 6

North East­ern Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 5

South East­ern Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 2

St George East Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 3

St Patrick Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 7

Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict: 2

The min­istry said the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS) was en­gaged to man­age the con­struc­tion, re­pair and main­te­nance pro­grammes, work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with prin­ci­pals, con­trac­tors and min­istry teams.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath com­mend­ed the ef­fort, say­ing, “I am proud that, through col­lab­o­ra­tion and strate­gic plan­ning, all schools will be ready to open on sched­ule. En­sur­ing that our schools are safe, se­cure, and wel­com­ing for every stu­dent is a top pri­or­i­ty as we con­tin­ue to pro­vide schools with the re­quired fund­ing, equip­ment and sup­plies to de­liv­er qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion.”

The min­istry added that the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme is the most ex­ten­sive ef­fort to date un­der its Na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Strat­e­gy, aimed at main­tain­ing safe­ty, func­tion­al­i­ty and longevi­ty of ed­u­ca­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.

It al­so thanked con­trac­tors, MTS teams and school su­per­vi­sors for their role in en­sur­ing stu­dents and staff re­turn to safe and well-main­tained learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

Fur­ther up­dates on school readi­ness and main­te­nance will be post­ed on the min­istry’s web­site and so­cial me­dia pages.