Ministry Of Education Plans to Modernize the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School

Basseterre, St. Kitts, May 31, 2023 (ZIZ Newsroom): It has been over a year since a fire destroyed a significant portion of the main compound of the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School in the village of Molineux and the Ministry of Education has expressed to the Department of Public Works that in rebuilding the school, they want it to be modernized.

This was disclosed by the Director of the Public Works Department, Mr. George Gilbert during the most recent edition of the programme InFocus.

“With the Joshua Obadiah Williams Primary School, we are getting ready to go to tender with that project. Initially, when the school caught fire, our intention was just to rehab it as is, put it back as is, really take off the roof, clean up, add new windows, new doors, and have it going in short order. But the school, the Ministry of Education, said no, that school is the oldest school in the federation and is not meeting the standard of a modern school. So, what they wanted is to take the opportunity to upgrade the school.”

He also mentioned what modernizing the school entails.

“They want the school to have two doors for each classroom, electrical in the classrooms, because these classrooms had no electricity, but the lights alone in the roof. They want the school to reflect a modern school. So, we had to do some addition to the school, upgrade the school, and increase the kindergarten size. We have done a number of work when it comes to the design. We did some preliminary designs and we met with the Education Department, the management, the staff and the senior staff at the school. We had a discussion, they look at our plan, they made some input, and then we went back to the drawing board. We made the adjustment and went back into another meeting with them. The ministers were there, the Minister from Education and the Minister from Public Infrastructure were there and we discussed again, then we moved ahead after we agreed on the design.”

Mr. Gilbert noted that the Public Works Department is 98 per cent done with the working drawings and the bill of quantities which they are aiming to roll out to be tendered in the second week of June.