Two weeks ago, we visited the San Pedro High School, where a portion of the ceiling in one of the classrooms had collapsed. No one was injured, since it was summer break, but after three engineers took a look at the structural integrity of the building, they agreed that it was not safe to use. So with the new school year started, the children have had to use a smaller building until the main one is fully repaired and renovated - which will take some time.
Today, we asked the Minister of Education about it, since they've been involved despite the school not being a government funded one. He told us today, though, that they do have plans to build new schools on the island.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I visited the San Pedro High School, it's a community school as you rightly pointed out. I visited it yesterday, or Wednesday, I visited it and had an opportunity to meet with the teachers, the principal, the board, some members of the board were there. We reviewed the whole school, they have gotten a private engineer to do an estimate of the works that are necessary."
"I believe they held a meeting with the, I don't know if they did it, but they told me they were going to have a meeting on Thursday evening with the parents and the community to discuss the engineers' findings and recommendations. 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's not as bad as it first appeared to be. What really happened is it's a false ceiling that collapsed, it's not the structural, the entire ceiling. It's a false ceiling that collapsed, but obviously when that collapsed it reveals some structural deficiencies that 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 3; government preschool, government primary school, and a government high school on the north side of San Pedro Ambergris Caye."
"That will start in, I would say in about six months, obviously that will take probably about two years to complete, but we're happy and we reported that to the community. We're happy that that project will finally get underway, because that will relieve a lot of the pressures on the existing high school there."
