New home for Brickdam Secondary students

Aug 03, 2016 News

According to Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education Suelle Findlay-Williams, the students and staff of Brickdam Secondary School will be relocated to the East La Penitence Primary School when the new school year begins on September 5.
The PRO further stated that the students from East La Penitence will be moved to the St. Pius Primary school. It is unclear whether the primary level students will share the building on a shift system or whether it can accommodate the students all at once.
Parents and staff of Brickdam Secondary had raised concerns last June regarding the institution’s deplorable conditions.
At a related press conference, Chief Education Officer Olato Sam had said that the Ministry was looking for land to build a school that will accommodate students from both Brickdam and Central High School. Sam had said that the ultimate aim is to move the staff and students of both schools out of their current environments. According to Sam, the Ministry’s aim is to have the students of both schools housed in one building.
Parents as well as staff had suggested that the students be housed either at Enterprise Primary School in D’Urban Backlands or at Saint Stanislaus on Brickdam. When the CEO was asked about these suggestions, he informed this publication that it was not the Ministry’s intention to use either of those two schools.
During Sam’s press conference, he said that the major problem which the Ministry faces is finding land in the Georgetown area on which to build the new institution.
The Brickdam students were forced to finish the last school term under deplorable conditions at the school while the Ministry’s building engineers made structural repairs. Sam had described this as a “stop-gap measure” since no permanent solution could have been found at the time.
It is disappointing that the Ministry cannot find a permanent location for these students, particularly since the need for a new building had been raised since 2011. A staffer of Brickdam Secondary had informed this publication that the former Minister of Education Shaik Baksh had announced that a new building to accommodate the students from both schools was being constructed.
Moreover, in 2013 staff had met Sam highlighting their plight and in the following year the Guyana Teachers’ Union held a special press conference highlighting the problems at the school. Teachers were then told that there is a state-of-the-art institution being built to house both Brickdam Secondary and Central High. To date, that building has not materialized.

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