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$75M to rehabilitate wing of Diamond Secondary School
Kaieteur News – The wing of the East Bank Demerara, Diamond Secondary School, which was destroyed by fire in December, 2018 will finally be rehabilitated this year to the tune of $75 million.
A section of the Diamond Secondary School which was destroyed by fire.
This is according to the Regional Executive Officer (REO), Mr. Donald Gajraj, who in a solicited comment told this publication that the wing of the building which was destroyed will be rehabilitated to its previous size. Gajraj told this publication that when the budgetary allocation has passed through the national procurement process, the project “will go out to tender” and works will begin once a contract has been awarded.
Speaking with Kaieteur News, the headmistress of the school, Ms. Lesmine Collins expressed her gratitude for the project as, according to her, it is currently short on space to accommodate students. This, she said, has been the state of affairs since the fire destroyed the office and staff room areas, forcing her and teachers to occupy classrooms.
Also destroyed in the fire were the Information Technology (IT) lab and the school’s library. The IT teacher, Eze Hamilton, told this publication that the rebuilding of that section will benefit both the staff and students – especially IT students who have to write their Electronic Document Preparation and Management (EDPM) examinations.
The project, once completed, will also save students from travelling to the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) in order to write their examinations, due to the lack of resources at the school.
“It is definitely great news, because after the fire we began using one of the classroom as the main office area and the Technical Drawing room as a staff room for teachers. The IT lab and library were also destroyed in the fire. We are currently using one of the science labs, which has been fitted with computer for IT class. This is not ideal because the computers should be in an air conditioned room, and the stools and tables that are currently being used were not designed to be used with a computer, especially since there is no back rest,” Hamilton said.
Kaieteur News previously reported that the office area of the school was gutted by an early morning fire on Christmas Eve in 2018. At time of the fire, a press release which was issued by the Ministry of Education, stated that approximately 1:20am on December 24, 2018, the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) responded to a report of a fire at the school.
However, upon their arrival, the middle section was already engulfed with flames.
The release further stated that the cause of the fire was unknown at the time of the release and that the GFS conducted inspections to ascertain whether the fire was as a result of an electrical malfunction, but no issues were found with the electrical connections.
In this year’s budget a total of $6.6 billion has been allocated for the construction, rehabilitation, extension, and maintenance of educational facilities across the country. These include the commencement of construction of the Prospect Secondary and the reconstruction of North Ruimveldt and North West Secondary schools which were both destroyed by fire last year.
Further, nursery schools at Hydronie, Haslington and Vryheid Lust and primary schools at Bamia/Amelia’s Ward, Kaikan, Karabairu, Zeelugt, Oronoque and other educational institutions are slated for construction works.
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