More Tomorrow Primary Gets Lifeline, Future Uncertain

More Tomorrow Primary School has survived the immediate threat of closure, but questions about its future are far from settled. After weeks of concern among parents, education officials and the community have agreed on a plan to keep the rural school open. A third teacher will now join the staff, easing the burden on the two educators who started the academic year managing more than thirty students across several grade levels. Education Minister Francis Fonseca says the ministry will continue assessing whether the school’s current enrollment can sustain it over the long term.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“The school will remain open. We have employed another teacher, so there’s another teacher there now. So the ministry continues to engage with them. There are challenges, as I pointed out the last time that remain. But I think they’re being worked out. They had a very good meeting with the community. The principal, the chief education officer, and her team were there. So I think they have a plan moving forward that will resolve the issues. So I think we have a solution. Eventually there will be three. There are only thirty students at the school, so I continue to insist that we have to look at the long-term plans. Whether or not it is sustainable to keep that school there, it still remains a question. So we’ll continue to look at that.”

 

Reporter

“Is there an issue with the rural transfer, transportation for students to schools? ‘Cause we have been getting complaints on this.”

 

Francis Fonseca

“Yeah the school bus contractors, we are having some issues. This year for the first time we introduced a new system that provides for the contractor general to review all of these contracts. And they’re small contracts but they have to go through a process. So there have been some delays in approval of those contracts by the contractor general’s office. But we’re being, we’re working through those and I believe that all of those will be resolved over the next few days.”

 

The school currently has two teachers, one of which is the principal, who is set to retire next year.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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