Schools being used as shelters may complicate arrangements for Grenadines students – PM
SCHOOL ARRANGEMENTS for students from the Southern Grenadines are still being finalized, but maybe complicated by the fact that a number of schools are still being used as emergency shelters.
Following the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 1, 2024, many families in the Southern Grenadines were forced to take up residence in schools in Union Island, Mayreau and Canouan.
Speaking on VC3 Roundtable Talk on August 7, Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves revealed that parents from Mayreau expressed a desire to have their children schooled on Canouan, due to the rapid advancement of the rebuilding effort on that island as opposed to the previous arrangement of Union Island.
“The students in Mayreau go to school in Union [Island] and we provide transportation for them,” Gonsalves explained. “ Many parents now want to go to Canouan because the situation is better. We are repairing both the secondary and primary school in Canouan and they will be ready in time for the school year. We are doing so with a wealthy individual who has a home in Canouan…a British person. There will be a dozen of them from Mayreau that we will have to take to Canouan…it is a longer distance than Mayreau down to Union [Island].”
Education officials are currently working to facilitate Union Island students at two schools on the island, however extensive repairs are needed as more than 95 percent of structures on the Union Island are currently uninhabitable. Parents of Union Island students have also been given the option of having their children schooled on the mainland.
Gonsalves said there has to be provision of “two sets of staff” to service schools in Union Island and those on the mainland.
He also explained that for school repairs to commence, the homes of the affected persons would need to be fixed first.
“On Mayreau, I am advised there is a big family there in the school… so we have to fix up their house first before we can move them out to do repairs.”
The two schools in Canouan are also being used to house around 95 persons displaced by the hurricane.
In the northern Grenadines, Gonsalves earmarked the Paget Farm Primary School as one which would need complete rebuilding.
“We have to build a temporary school. The piece of land we have to have the school on, somebody has to design it and it gets waterlogged so we have to put it higher,” he explained. Gonsalves also appealed for persons who have homes or apartments that can be rented to establish contact with the authorities so arrangements can be made to remove persons from some of the public shelters that are needed. He said the government will cover the cost of rent for the duration of time it takes to repair or rebuild the homes of the displaced families who would have to be moved into these premises.The new school term begins on September 2, 2024.
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