$800,000 To Be Invested into Stella Maris Upgrades

At the end of Friday’s house meeting, Minister of Education Francis Fonseca also highlighted the need for better security at Stella Maris School. He announced an eight hundred-thousand-dollar investment to rehabilitate and refurbish the school compound, emphasizing that the school has always been a priority for his government.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“We are absolutely committed to ensuring that something like this does not happen again. So, there are immediate things we have to do. We have to address of course practical issues, look at security the gate, the fencing, the wardens, watchmen, all of those things. I want to make the point. I know it is a late hour, but I want to make the point that Stella Maris has a hundred and twenty-eight students. I think there is twenty-three teachers. We have fourteen support staff and then we have watch men and wardens. So it is not, we understand and have understood for a long time that these children need special attention. So we have a big group, big team. So what happened is a tragic accident. And what is unfortunate as well is that for the past two years we have been working on an entire project for Stella Maris, to upgrade and rehabilitate the compound. We have already gotten the funding. I think last figure I saw it is going to be an investment of eight hundred and fifty thousand in rehabilitation and refurbishing Stella Maris school, changing the entire fence. We are going to put up a much more secure fence, make it a lot more accessible for these kids.”