The Government has earmarked $310 million to rebuild and strengthen St. Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS)in Santa Cruz.
Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Dr. the Hon. Dana Morris Dixon, made the announcement while addressing the school’s graduation ceremony on June 25, held under the theme ‘Through Challenges We Rise: Embracing Resilience and Achieving Success’.
Dr. Morris Dixon said the investment is part of a broader, multibillion-dollar national effort to rebuild more than 400 schools that sustained damage when the category-five Hurricane Melissa swept across the island in October last year.
“We have 400 schools that have been damaged across Jamaica and all of them we are trying to build back at the same time. You know, that’s a very difficult feat; it’s very hard,” Dr. Morris Dixon outlined.
The Minister pointed out the scope of work being carried out at STETHS, such as redesigning the male and female dormitories with reinforced concrete roof slabs and additional supporting columns to improve structural stability to better withstand future storms.
Also, the damaged teachers’ cottage and the principal’s residence are being upgraded, while the grade-11 block will receive reinforced purlins beneath new 24-gauge industrial roof sheeting, she noted.
Dr. Morris Dixon said additional strengthening works will be carried out across the campus to withstand high winds, heavy rainfall and other extreme weather conditions.
In the meantime, the Minister said that STETHS will become home to Jamaica’s first high-school mechatronics and robotics laboratory when students return in September.
She indicated that the state-of-the-art facility forms part of a $400-million investment by the Ministry, using funding from the HEART/NSTA Trust, to strengthen technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in technical high schools across the island.
“We believe that our students at STETHS, or any of the other technical high schools in Jamaica, must have the best technology at their fingertips,” Dr. Morris Dixon underscored.
Addressing the graduating students directly, the Minister encouraged them to mirror the resilience being built into their school’s walls.
She acknowledged that life would bring setbacks and moments of disappointment but urged them to keep moving forward and to view closed doors not as failures but as redirections.
