MORE FUNDING and an overhaul of the school system.
These are what Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw will be focusing on when the ministry engages Prime Minister Mia Mottley, other Cabinet members, educational officials as well as members of the teachers’ unions come Saturday. While Bradshaw had a range of programmes to be implemented in schools, she admitted that funding was a challenge.
“There has been a decade where we have not seen the level of funding that is needed to maintain the school plants. As a consequence, every week there were issues of rat droppings, pigeons taking over and schools plagued by different environmental issues . . . . “I feel as though even though we are prioritising the funds that we have, there is an urgent need to have a serious injection into the upgrade of the school plants.”
Bradshaw, who is in Miami receiving medical treatment, told the
DAILY NATION in a telephone interview she had been in discussion with the Prime Minister regarding funding to carry out much-needed maintenance on schools.
Programme
“I did not want that we went back into school in September with plants looking the same way they did in July,” she said, adding the ministry would be devising a maintenance programme for schools.
Bradshaw indicated that the ministry was trying to seek funding from “non-traditional” sources such as non-governmental organisations, as well as trying to partner with different groups that could create programmes at schools for children.
“I want to make sure that we can validate and recommend some of these programmes.”
(MB)
