Email

Print

Today's ground breaking on the El Progresso pre-school was part of The Belize Education Sector Reform Programme.  GOB launched the program back in Jan 2016 in partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank to provide children across the country with equitable access to a quality basic education, and increase enrollment in post-secondary and tertiary education. 

But, more than three years later, the project is just getting off the ground because acquiring the land for 35 new schools has proved more difficult than expected:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"The project required us to actually own the land that we're going to build the schools on, so that took us some working out. In some cases it is crown land, in some cases are leasing land from churches, in some cases they are private owners but all of that had to be really worked out in a proper way before we were able to get to this stage of ground breaking. So while we had our troubles getting here, I am absolutely happy that we're here and I take great pleasure in participating in all of these ground breaking ceremonies to ensure that the quality of education in this country is improved, our children are in a much better environment."

Jules Vasquez
"How is it broken down, the 35 schools, how many pre-schools, how many primary, how many secondary?"

Hon. Patrick Faber
"I think they are 22 pre-schools and I think 8 secondary schools and the rest are additional to primary schools."

Jules Vasquez
"Is the emphasis in the right place? We know there is a very high rate of children not moving on, boys in particular not moving on from primary school to high school."

Hon. Patrick Faber
"Yes, we believe that a major part of that issue of course and the struggles that our children have in the latter days of their educations if you will, whether it means later primary school or high school or even tertiary as I hinted to this morning. Children need a strong start and that is what early childhood education does and if you notice we say early childhood education but there's also early childhood development. Children start developing even from the womb and so we must ne nurturing them, helping them to learn, create an environment for them to learn, even from then. But their education journey, we believe should start officially at pre-primary, which is at age 3 or so and then they get 2 years of pre-primary before they go on to primary school. So that is really ideally what we believe ought to happen."

Upon their completion the proposed 35 schools will house 5200 students and will include 178 classrooms and laboratories, as well as relevant sanitary and administrative spaces. The project will also fund the outfitting of each school with furniture, equipment and technology to enhance the students' learning environment.