THE Belladrum Secondary School in Region Five, which benefited from a long-overdue $18M upgrade in physical infrastructure last year, will get an additional $19.6 million for completion of its rehabilitation and refurbishment this year.
The regional administration sought and received this sum from central government in its budgetary allocations for the school this year, Regional Executive Officer Ovid Morrison recently disclosed.

He said that the administration had felt it necessary to spend the sums because of the serious state into which the building had deteriorated, due to years of neglect.

“The extent of neglect of the physical infrastructure of that school by the previous administration was beyond belief,” Morrison said.

Superintendent of Works for the regional administration, Mr Delton Benjamin, said that the sum of $10M will be used for extensive facelifts, including painting the interior of the school, as well as sections of the exterior; for electrical maintenance works; for the upgrading of sanitary facilities; for replacing rotting zinc sheets on the roof; tiling of the floors and installing security grills to doors and stairways.

The roof is to be extended to prevent rain water from leaking into the classrooms and disrupting classes during rainfall.

Among other improvements, the sum of $9.6 million will be used to continue work in countering bat infestation at the school, by bat-proofing the ceiling of the school.
The major activities of the school’s maintenance and facelift will take place during the August holiday.

The work this year in addition to the work done under an $18M allocation last year, will bring the physical infrastructure of the school to an acceptable standard for an education institution.
Other works will be conducted next year for further upgrades and ensuring that the standards achieved are maintained, Benjamin said.