WORK should get under way on the new facility for disruptive students by January 2012.
Speaking to the media after a tour of five of the 23 schools upgraded this summer, Minister of Education Ronald Jones said a tender had gone out for the contract.
He is still not disclosing a location or the cost of the project.
“You will find out in due course . . . information is given in the dosage that wouldn’t cause diarrhoea,” was all the minister would say.
The school should cater for up to 120 students who are not comfortable in the regular school environment and might be disruptive to others.
Time spent at the facility would vary per child and would depend on when a change in behaviour was recognized and the age at which the child was referred, Jones said.
“It is all part of a developmental exercise.
It is not a school which should carry a stain. It is for us to be given the opportunity to really make the lives of those children different,” he stated.
Students referred to this school will still pursue academic studies, but will undergo other vocational activities and counselling.
“It is about self-empowerment, giving them new perspectives on life and working assiduously to ensure that the path which they [are] treading now [is] a path which they will be diverted from. And if at the end of the day after all of this is done and you can’t get that change, then the other institution, which is a little ways down the road, which is a residential academy, will seek to take care of them . . . . This is the first stage of that,” he explained.
Until such time as this special school is ready, Jones said, the education authorities will continue to use the expertise of the private and public sector to address the situations that arise. (YB)
