Goshen school relocated from beside cemetery to fight stigma
Published:Saturday | September 3, 2022 | 12:08 AMOlivia Brown/Gleaner Writer
There are sighs of relief in St Elizabeth after the Goshen Early Childhood Institution (ECI) was relocated from beside the community cemetery.
Two Thursdays ago, Goshen Primary School Principal Natalee Roper-Allen and Goshen ECI Chairman Desmond Williams were among persons lamenting the adverse impact the proximity of the cemetery had been having on the school over the years.
Roper-Allen had told The Gleaner that some parents had opted to send their children outside of the community.
On Thursday, workmen were busy removing furniture from the Goshen ECI and taking them to Goshen Primary, where the early childhood students will now be accommodated.
Goshen ECI Principal Elaine Bryan said that enrolment numbers had already climbed by 10 per cent since the relocation activities began, but she fears that as word of the relocation spreads throughout the community, space challenges could arise.
“The numbers have increased because the word has spread and there are people who are excited about it,” Bryan told The Gleaner on Thursday.
“There are benefits to the relocation,” she added. “One, we were located near the cemetery and a lot of persons have issues with that, and also, where there are older siblings, if the smaller ones are on the same compound, it would be easier on the parents’ pocket in terms of transportation. They wouldn’t have to find another taxi to pick up the children, so those are two advantages of the relocation.”
Bryan, who has been at the helm of the three-decade-old institution since 2001, said residents in the community had long harboured concerns over the school being so close to the cemetery.
“There are some people who will never send their children there, and yet, there are other families who send their children there. [Those children] grow up and send their children there,” she said.
Bryan said, however, that the ultimate goal is to have the ECI merged with the primary school, which would see the discontinuation of the payment of school fees.
She said that such a move could also result in cost saving as both sets of students would benefit from shared resources.