And aside from some of the students not being able to pay their school fees, their schools are also facing infrastructural issues. Both the primary and high school have more students that the buildings have capacity for, and enrollment numbers are only growing. More than that, they're also facing effects from climate change. The chairlady told us some of their concerns today.
Seleny Villanueva Pott, Chairlady, Caye Caulker
"I think with Climate Change we've seen a drastic increase, tidal increase and we've have a lot of challenges primarily here at Ocean Academy where the school had to build a ramp inside the school to navigate from classroom to classroom not to get their feet wet. There are days when they have to call school off, the water is so high. The building isn't really made for a school of this size, there's 190 students but as we explained to the prime minister, an education is important. The principal and the teachers have been doing their best with what they have and we'll continue to see how we can make things work but it needs to be addressed soon."
"The primary school, there's now, for the first time we're going to have 3 infant 1's which means that every class after this is going to be three. There's no more room, some of the classrooms have been split in half so we need additional funding for classrooms. As we speak, the kitchen is being used for a classroom. The principal had explained that she needed a building for the incoming so since we didn't get that building, the kitchen is being used. She told me that the cost of the construction for the classrooms would be $190,000 so we're kind seeing where we're going to get that money from, fundraising, again we're asking the Ministry of Education to where they could assist us but education is important across the country, even more so on Caye Caulker and whatever assistance we could get from the government, we'd be very appreciative of that."
Email
Print