THE Belladrum Secondary School in Region Five which benefitted from a $15.6M upgrade in physical infrastructural works last year will get an additional $20 million for completion this year.

The regional administration sought and received this sum from central government in its budgetary allocations for the school, Regional Executive Officer (REO) Ovid Morrison disclosed.

He said the administration had felt it necessary to spend this sum in 2019 to fix the dilapidated building, due to neglect, over the past 20 years.

Superintendent of Works Delton Benjamin said the administration injected a total of $26M into refurbishing of the school in 2017.

He added that in 2017, the region utilised savings to paint the school, tile the auditorium, did electrical and plumbing works, build a chainlink fence, a concrete tarmac and an access bridge aback the community playground, among other upgrades.

Restoration continued in 2018 with expenditure of a total of $15.6M on the school.
“In 2018, we tackled the main building, the wood works, the home economics and social studies rooms, teachers’ rest room, teachers’ staff room, the carpentry section in the admin block – same bat dung problems.

“The rain was flashing in, in another section for years; we built a shed; we changed 30 per cent of the zinc sheets; changed 30 doors and 40 windows; installed new gutters, electrical and plumbing and then with savings we extended the allied arts department.

“We removed and replaced unserviceable shutters with steel grilles. The new windows not only enabled ventilation, but also let in light into the classrooms.
“We also constructed a walking strip at a cost of $2M, so that the children could access the school from the dam to the building because when it rained, the pathway was messy and difficult to negotiate,” Benjamin said.

This year, the Region Five administration is plugging $20M into further restoration of the school.

“In 2019, we will complete the tiling, more electrical more plumbing, putting in incinerators upgrading /expanding the home economics department, because they identify a bigger area which could be a community thing,” he said.
These additional works, he said, will return the school to the state it was in when it was constructed in 1973.