Above 75% turnout
STUDENTS turned out yesterday to the newly constructed $380M Bartica Secondary School located at Three-Mile, Bartica-Potaro Road in Region Seven as Government continues its drive to increase access to secondary education throughout the regions of Guyana.

A section of the new Bartica Secondary School.

Regional Chairman Holbert Knights told the Government Information Agency (GINA) that student turn out was above 75% yesterday and that the school has not been affected by the present rainfall situation.

Knights said that there are however, some problems with the access roads to the school and that the dorm for the new building has not been completed. He said that the students are still using the dorm of the previous building in Seventh Avenue but transportation is being provided for them, and by the end of the week the current works on the new dorm will be completed.

The school was built to accommodate 1000 from central Bartica and various parts of the Region including Mazaruni.

The new school boasts an industrial arts department with all the modern equipment, a fully equipped computer and science laboratory, a home economics department, an auditorium and a dormitory.

A new transformer was installed by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) while there is an adequate water supply.

The new school will be used as a senior institution while students who were unsuccessful at the National Grade Six Assessment will remain at the former secondary school building.

Construction of the school was delayed by two years mainly as a result of landscaping.

The construction of state-of-the-art schools across the country is part of Government’s interventions to secure universal secondary education by 2013.

The school was constructed under the Ministry’s Basic Education Access and Management Support (BEAMS) programme which facilitated the rehabilitation and construction of other schools including Bladen Hall, North Ruimveldt Multilateral, Lodge Community High, Charlestown Secondary, Tutorial High, Aurora Secondary, and Diamond Secondary.
The new Bartica Secondary will be commissioned shortly.