$1B Westminster School finally completed

Apr 10, 2021 News

15 months after original deadline…

The newly constructed Westminster Secondary School

The view of the dance studio

Kaieteur News – The $1B Westminster Secondary School in La Parfaite Harmony, Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) is finally completed, though 15 months after the original deadline.
The Ministry of Education yesterday via a press release revealed this, where it was stated that the Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, conducted a visit to the “state-of-the-art facility” and declared it ready for the new school year, which will begin in September.
The construction of the school fell under the Guyana Secondary Education Improvement Project (GSEIP), which was funded by the World Bank. The project aimed to aid the achievement of Universal Secondary Education in Guyana in keeping with modern standards.
The release noted that originally, the PPP administration in 2013 had planned for six schools to be constructed under the GSEIP project, but the number was reduced to three. The three schools to be built were the Westminster Secondary School, the Good Hope Secondary School and the Prospect Secondary School.
The contract for the construction of the Westminster Secondary School was awarded to R. Bassoo and Sons Construction in October 2018, and began the same month with a January 2020 deadline. However, the deadline was not met and upon assuming office in August 2020, Manickchand warned contractors of the government’s zero-tolerance policy for delayed works and charged them to have the works completed within the contractual time.
The Ministry’s release noted that since then she had been working closely with R. Bassoo and Sons Construction Inc., and the consulting firm Deen and Partners/SRKN Engineering to ensure the school is completed.
Furthermore, it stated that all of the furniture and necessary equipment have already been bought and will be installed as soon as the building is handed over to the Ministry. That handing over is slated for next week. The Education Minister has also affirmed that the school will be staffed with competent graduate teachers and other relevant staff.
It will accommodate 1,000 students and will therefore be a Grade A school, according to the Minister, but for now, it will be categorised as Grade B. The Grade B status is set to change to Grade A over the next two years. It was also disclosed that the Ministry intends to upgrade the school a Sixth Form school to offer students the opportunity to sit the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).
The newly constructed school has 32 classrooms, a language lab, a dance studio, a library, Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratories, an Information Technology Laboratory, a theatre room, a Mathematics laboratory, Home Economics Laboratory and an Agriculture Science Laboratory, among other important facilities.
An update was also given on the Good Hope Secondary School, which is also overdue for completion, and it was said that Manickchand is hopeful that it can also be ready for September to serve the students of Region Four.