As part of its efforts to reduce the overcrowding at the Kato Secon-dary School in Region Eight, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand has announced that a modern secondary school will be built in another village, Kopi-nang and will cater for students from within that catchment area.
In a short video which was posted on her Facebook page, the minister said that the school will be built on a plot of land which was given to them by a resident of the village of Kopinang and its Toshao.
“We came here to talk to residents and parents of students and have a look at the land that the toshao and village have given to us for us to build a secondary school… so we’re gonna be building a secondary school… residents and villagers have already begun to clear it for us.”
She explained that the modern school will be constructed in order to accommodate some 500 secondary school students and will also have a dorm that will shelter 400 of them. Additionally, due to the village not having enough qualified and trained teachers, Manickchand noted that a teachers’ quarters will be built to lodge those educators who may have to temporarily migrate there.
The new school, she noted, will include such facilities as chemistry, physics, and biology laboratories, an Information Technology lab and a library.
Manickchand said that once the new secondary school is completed, it will allow the ministry to close six ‘primary tops’ in the catchment area. These are secondary schools which are attached to primary schools. Overcrowding at the Kato Secondary School which is currently being operated under a shift system, will also be decreased,
“It is going to allow us to close six primary tops in the catchment area… right now the children from this catchment, they’re going to Kato or in primary tops and in Kato they are in rotation because it’s just too many of them there,” said Manickchand.
