[www.inewsguyana.com] – Residents of Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo and surrounding communities welcomed the commissioning of a spanking new, state-of-the-art nursery school built at a cost of $98.8M.
Architecturally, the building is the first of its kind in the country, built specifically with all the necessary amenities to accommodate nursery-age children.
Funding for the school was made possible through the Caribbean Development Bank’s, Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF). Prior to the construction of this school, nursery-age children were housed at the Tuschen Primary school. The school currently has an enrollment of 180 students.
Also present at the commissioning ceremony were Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Denzil Douglas, Minister within the Ministry of Finance, Juan Edghill, and President of the CDB De William Warren Smith, and members of the bank’s board of governors.
Delivering the feature address, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said that education and training is the way to greater production and productivity and will no doubt result in people becoming better citizens.
“Today, the quality of our school buildings is altogether much better than when we started off; there has been a steady increase in expenditure…we have made great progress in this area,” the Prime Minister said.
He noted that whilst the Government recognises the need to grant assistance to other vulnerable groups, such as old-age pension and other social payments, the way to overcome poverty is to make people more productive.
This he said, can only be done through education and training.Similar sentiments were expressed by Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh who said that there is no more important an investment to be made than that in young people. As such, despite pressing fiscal challenges, the Government has persevered with mission-like zeal in increasing investment every year in the social sector, particularly education, which receives the largest single allocation in the national budget.
This level of investment has enabled the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education, and is well on its way to achieving universal secondary education.
Moreover, the Government, with the support of partners like the CDB has constructed technical institutes across the country to bring technical and vocational training to more young people than ever before.
Construction of the Tuschen Nursery School commenced in September 2012.
[Extracted and modified from GINA]
