– State-of-the-Art facilities cater for 1000 students

AS the government persistently strives towards attaining universal secondary education, the establishment of Prospect Secondary, which costs a total of USD$8.1M, emerges as a significant contributor to this endeavour.
The Ministry of Education (MoE), which is currently seeking approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that it is implementing the Guyana Strengthening Human Capital through Education Project, which is supported by the World Bank.

This project stands to support the current government’s secondary education and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) reform agenda, achieving both universal secondary education and increased provision of labour-market relevant skills.

The document then went on to state that it is anticipated that the new school will have a capacity of 1000 students, to accommodate both current and future populations.
According to the project summary, the proposed secondary school is to be located at Prospect, East Bank Demerara and the area reserved for construction of the school is 6.12 acres.

“When it was decided to construct the Prospect Secondary School, there were 307 secondary school students attending primary tops, and 450 learners who were being housed in the auditorium of secondary schools due to oversubscription,” the document read, while adding that the new housing development lies adjacent to the school site.

Moreover, the construction will be carried out by a general contractor under contract to the MoE, and the contractor will be procured through a competitive bidding process.
The construction period is expected to be a 15-month period, followed by a 12-month defect liability period.

The school will include the following facilities: 25 classrooms; an information technology laboratory; a language laboratory; science laboratories; an Industrial Technology Department (metal work, wood work AutoCAD); a Home Economics Department (food and nutrition, clothing and textile and home management); Visual and Performing Arts facilities, a library, and a sick bay.

Also, the school will have an administrative block including a principal’s office, staff room, a canteen, sanitary facilities for students and staff, an assembly area/all-weather playing area, a recreational area, an agricultural area, and other facilities.
In addition, the following ancillary facilities will be constructed: guard huts, a car park, and cycle shed, a septic system, a water trestle, and reservoirs, an auditorium, a boundary fence, bridge(s), internal and external drainage system, speed bumps and pedestrian crossings, among others.

Furthermore, the design of the school caters to universal access.
In 2021, the Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, during a ceremonial sod-turning event at the proposed site of the new Prospect Secondary School on the East Bank of Demerara, pledged that there would be better monitoring of construction works on new schools.

Referring to a situation that currently exists whereby work on the construction of a number of new schools has been woefully falling behind schedule, Minister Manickchand warned that when construction at Prospect commences, this state of affairs will not be allowed to occur.

“My commitment and promise to you here today is that this school will not be like those other schools. Today, we commit to you that any civil-works project we take on, we will monitor it very, very closely. If the people who are monitoring it are unable to monitor it, they will have to make space for people who are capable of doing that; and I’m very clear about that,” the minister stated.

“We are going to keep a very tight timeline on the completion of this school, and as soon as you miss, we will be on your backs; not because we want to manage like autocrats, but for all the time that the school stays unbuilt, we have children in the secondary department of a primary school unable to get the quality of education that they need. And that would be a sin, and it’s criminal,” the minister said.