Williams agrees with Opposition’s call for school facility upgrading Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

Education and Youth Minister, Fayval Williams, has agreed in principle with a call by the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) for improvements to be made to staffrooms and other infrastructures at public schools locally.

“I have no quarrel at all with any call for us (at the Education Ministry) to upgrade the staff facilities at schools, and we will continue to do that within the constraints of the budget that we have,” said Williams.

She was speaking at the ministry’s press conference on Monday to address several issues regarding education, including teacher migration.

Last week, Opposition Spokesman on Education and Training, Senator Damion Crawford, called for immediate investment in the upgrading of school staffrooms to create an adequate and comfortable environment for teachers to work from.

In addition, he called for the ministry to address the poor and insufficient infrastructure at several schools across the island.

On Monday, Williams disclosed that the Education Ministry has a database in which schools are ranked based on the status of their infrastructure.

“It is going to take time for us to get to all our schools. There are approximately a thousand schools across Jamaica with varying needs, and I do agree that many of the facilities in our schools for teachers and our administrators need to be upgraded,” she shared.

The minister said she has indicated to the National Education Trust, which “manages most of our major infrastructure work for major works going on at schools, that we have to begin to construct an administrative block for our schools, because after all, our teachers and administrators go to work and it’s their work place.

“As we continue to maintain and improve our schools, you will begin to see better facilities for our teachers and administrators,” Williams assured.

Meanwhile, the minister said a meeting is to be held this week with principals across the country to update them about school infrastructure projects that were completed in the last school year, and those projects which are to commence during the 2022-2023 academic year.

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