East Street Nursery to open in two weeks

Georgetown: The Ministry of Education wishes to inform the parents and guardians of children set to attend the East Street Nursery School, that the school will not be opened on Monday September 02, 2013 as was previously announced. The East Street Nursery School is now set to reopen in approximately two weeks.

This is the only school in Georgetown that will not be opened on time.

The main reason for the delay is due to the fact that the building is not finished and could not be finished in the time that the contractors had over the holiday period. The Ministry sincerely apologizes to those parents and guardians for the inconvenience caused by this delay.

The minister visited the school on Friday to assess the state of the work being done on the building, met with parents and guardians and apologized to them for the unfortunate delay. She said that the ministry was faced with two very difficult choices regarding whether the Ministry should go ahead with the construction of the school. She said all contractors indicated that they could not finish the school in the holiday period. She said that the ministry is paying even more than normal to do the building at 38 million dollars so that the workers could have worked day and night. She explained however that even with working night and day, some periods could not be condensed, “for example concrete has a curing time that cannot be reduced.”

“We were faced with two tough choices, either we continue on with the old building or we construct a new building. Continuing with the old building would have avoided your annoyance and the criticisms of the opportunistic politicians who will want to criticize our late opening. But I must base my decisions only on what is in the best interest of your children. And it is in their best interest to have a new school as the old one was not in the best condition.”

The minister in recognizing the difficulties facing some of the parents and guardians of children attending the school, and their access to further day-care or child care facilities as a result of the delayed reopening of the school, offered to make arrangements for them. This offer was happily accepted by some parents.