–as sod is turned to commence building top-of-the-line nursery school in community

MINISTER of Education Priya Manickchand, along with Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, on Tuesday, turned the symbolic sod to mark the beginning of the construction of a spanking new Grade ‘A’ nursery school in Martyr’s Ville, a little-known community on the East Coast Demerara.
The school is being constructed by Doodnauth Construction and Supplies, and is expected to be completed by August 31, 2021. When done, it will have the capacity to accommodate up to 270, and boast such amenities as an independent water system, an outdoor playfield, and a modern sanitary block, which will cater for the differently abled.
In what has become her signature warning, Minister Manickchand cautioned the contractor that the project will be thoroughly supervised, and the company will be expected to deliver a product that aligns with what was promised.
“To the contractor, we are very happy to have you on this project. You bid for this project; you said you can do it at this cost, and at this time. We liked you well enough, but you have to do what you say you will do; finish in this bracket of time and within cost. We are saying this to you not because we want to be harsh, but if we fail to finish this project the children will suffer,” Minister Manickchand said.

The school is considered an important aspect of the Ministry of Education’s wider plan to deliver quality education, and make it more accessible to everyone.
Kindergartners from the communities which the new school will cater to, currently attend the Mon Repos Nursery School. However, since that school is located over one mile away from Martyrs Ville and its environs, the new facility will bring education closer to those who need it, and make it easier for parents to ensure their children get to school.
“For us, that is extremely important. When we open schools for nursery-aged children, your children will be coming to a new school, once the contractor does what he is contracted to do,” Minister Manickchand told the gathering, which included parents and children from the community in which the school is being built.
The minister noted that though nursery education in Guyana is not compulsory, Guyana has managed to ensure that over 80 per cent of the children at that age countrywide has had access to it, which equates to over 27,000 children being registered at 470 nursery schools. The minister said that notwithstanding nursery school being elective, the ministry is striving for a 100 per cent nursery education, to complement the 100 per cent primary education which has already been achieved.
The ministry is also working towards achieving a 100 per cent secondary education coverage across the country. Similar to Tuesday’s exercise, last week saw the minister turning the sod for a new secondary school at Prospect, on the East Bank Demerara.

INITIAL INTAKE OF 42

Once completed, the nursery school is expected to begin being utilised in the new school year, with an initial cohort of at least 42 kindergarteners, who are currently attending the Mon Repos Nursery School. Also at Tuesday’s sod-turning ceremony were Chief Education Officer Dr. Marcel Hutson; Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Alfred King; and the MoE’s Chief Engineer, Ron Eastman. Eastman explained that though many of the ministry’s projects are often supervised by a consultant, this one in particular will be directly supervised and monitored by its Projects Department which he himself heads.
He said it will be an honour and a privilege for his department to ensure that the project delivers on what has been promised.
Minister Nandlall probably took everyone by surprise when he said that he knew Martyr’s Ville, located just past Agriculture Road in Mon Repos North, like the back of his hand, as he grew up there. He said, too, and that there had always been plans to build a nursery school in the community, but due to budgetary constraints, they’d fallen through.

However, with several expansions to the community expected, and several infrastructural developments currently underway, the school was deemed all the more necessary at this time, in order to accommodate the projected growth of the community.
As Minister Nandlall observed, “Martyr’s Ville has quite a history, and was part of the inaugural steps of a great housing drive across the country. Since then, this land was earmarked for the construction of a ‘nursery’. It took us a long time before we decided to build this nursery school, but we were dealing with competing demands.”
He said that with education being at the top of the government’s priorities for the nation’s development, he took it upon himself last year to reach out to the Minister of Education and lobby for the school to finally be constructed.
“Education is one of the government’s highest priorities,” Minister Nandlall said, adding: “Our children are our most precious asset; not the oil, the gold or the diamonds, but our children. In every one of our budgets, education ranks among the largest budgetary allocation, because our children are our greatest asset, and we do not hold back on investments in relation to their future.”  In closing, Minister Nandlall said he was looking forward to returning in August to be part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the school when it is completed.