Ground broken for new block at Bridgeport High
MOEY project to eliminate shift system resumes
Published:Wednesday | June 21, 2023 | 1:30 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
THE GOVERNMENT’S billion-dollar schools’ improvement programme that hit a pause during the COVID-19 pandemic has restarted with a $235-million allocation to improve Bridgeport High School in Portmore, St Catherine, yesterday. The money will finance construction of a new block, which Education and Youth minister Fayval Williams says will allow the school to transition from the shift system.
“It is a serious commitment we made to the people of Jamaica to take all schools off the shift system, and we do not take this lightly,” Williams said while addressing the groundbreaking ceremony.
She added: “This is a significant occasion for this school community, and we are thrilled to be taking this important step towards providing our students with an improved learning environment.
“Over the past seven years the Government of Jamaica has undertaken a massive infrastructure, renovation, and development programme in our public schools that continue to result in (a) significantly improved learning environment for our students,” Williams informed.
According to the education minister, this has been accomplished because of an increase in the budget allocated to the MOEY, and the ministry continues to fulfil its mandate to enhance the learning environment in a targeted, efficient, and effective manner.
Executive Director at the National Education Trust (NET), Latoya Harris-Ghartey, said the delay in the project’s execution was to ensure that NET got it right.
“We have a mandate from the minister to fix infrastructure, to remove the shift system, and to improve access to quality school environment for all our students,” Harris-Ghartey said.
“I have tasked the team to ensure that we meet the project’s timeline so that the school will have the facilities for the full rollout of whole-day school come September 2024, and within budget.”
STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITIES
According to Harris-Ghartey, the new building will boost the latest state-of-the-art facilities to include classrooms, science labs and bathrooms for both students and staff.
“With this investment of some 235 million dollars we affirm our commitment to Bridgeport,” Harris-Ghartey iterated, while imploring everyone to take care of the facility and to see it as an investment from the people of Jamaica to the school.
For member of parliament for St Catherine South East, Robert Miller, who is a past student at the school, the improvement to the school is a dream come true.
“This gift from the Ministry of Education will finally take our students off the shift system; this is something I have lobbied for many years to happen and finally it has come to fruition,” Miller said.
“What this will do is allow students to sleep a litter longer, to participate in extracurricular activities. We asked the students to utilise this because they are getting the kind of facility to enhance their education,” he noted, recollecting his days of having to do accounts classes under a tree in the schoolyard.
The school was opened in September 1988 to accommodate 500 students. It now has over 1,000 students.
It remains the only school in Portmore that is still on the shift system and the first high school in Portmore that started a sixth-form programme.
The project is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2024 school term, which traditionally begins in September.