Sacred Heart fire displaces 1,422 students -alternative accommodation to be found
Stabroek News
December 28, 2004
The Georgetown Education Department will have to either rent accommodation or operate shift systems with other schools to accommodate the 1,422 children and 45 teachers of the Sacred Heart Primary School whose buildings were burnt to the ground on Christmas Day.
This was the view of Georgetown District Education Officer Marcel Hudson, who was at the scene of the fire that gutted the Sacred Heart Primary, rated the largest, and one of the leading public primary schools in the city.
Hudson said that all the possibilities would have to be explored and the school would have to start from scratch as nothing was saved. "Children would have to go to school", he said.
When contacted, Minister of Education Dr Henry Jeffrey told Stabroek News that in rebuilding, the number of children who live within the catchment area would have to be considered. He said that of the 1,422 children only about 500 were from the area.
The possibility of placing children within their own home area would also have to be considered in the wake of the fire, he said. The school was one of the oldest in the city.
The Sacred Heart Primary, which was housed in two separate buildings, was gutted in the mid-morning fire on Saturday that ravaged the Sacred Heart Church and presbytery/parish hall, a customs brokerage and the Kirpalani bond.
One of the two buildings that Sacred Heart Primary occupied was a three-storey one and the other a two-storey edifice. In all, a total of 45 classrooms were accommodated from the ground floor upwards.
Headmistress, Yonette Johnson, who dashed to the scene of the fire when she got the news, told Stabroek News that nothing was saved. All the school's records and teaching and learning aids were destroyed.
One of her major concerns was accommodation for the 264 children who are preparing for the Secondary Schools Entrance Examinations (SSEE) at the end of the Easter Term. School is due to reopen on January 3.
Sections of the school buildings were being rehabilitated. One of the buildings had undergone major rehabilitation work under the Primary Education Improvement Project during the construction phase of that project.
The school had begun a literacy programme under the current Basic Education Access and Management Support (BEAMS) project. (Miranda La Rose)