About 180 students taking classes at Arnos Vale following $3m upgrade 

“About 180” students from Union Island are taking classes at the former Teachers’ College campus in Arnos Vale, which the government spent EC$3 million to upgrade since the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 1.

The government has said that the campus would have been upgraded to accommodate about 450 students from the three schools — one secondary and two primary — on the storm-ravaged island, even as attending class in Union Island was also an option.

“The original numbers which the ministry gave us of the total population in Union was an exaggerated number,” Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said on NBC Radio.

Students from the Union Island Secondary School and the two primary schools on the island are taking classes at joined campuses both on Union Island and at Arnos Vale in St. Vincent.

In Union Island, the government has yet to repair or rebuild the Stephanie Browne or Mary Hutchinson primary school, which was damaged or destroyed during the storm.

This remains the case although the government has quoted figures similar to the EC$3 million spent at Arnos Vale.

Gonsalves said Tuesday was a big day for the secondary school students from Union Island who are taking classes in Arnos Vale as they had their orientation. 

He pointed out that the two primary schools in Union Island would be taking classes at the secondary school building in the southern Grenadine island. 

“You have enough space to accommodate everybody. That’s a matter of reorganisation,” the prime minister said.

“There are some things which can hold you up. Like, for instance, all the repairs are done on the school in Union Island.  We got badly damaged… We needed to assess which one to focus on our efforts down there and up here, because we knew that you’re going to have a lot of people up here, not that you are going to have — within the first week [after the hurricane], half of the people of Union Island had been up here, had come up here, more than half, in fact, … and they came with their children.”

Gonsalves said there was an “argument” about the people of Union Island being resilient. 

“’They will stay down there. They will use flambeau if they have to. … they’ll be like Fred and Barney in Flintstones.’ Absolutely ridiculous,” he said, exaggerating the comments that had been made. 

The prime minister said that some people who were speaking like this do not have any children going to school or had their children educated in St. Vincent even while there were secondary schools in the Southern Grenadines. 

“… or some who overseas in the comfort of New York, Philadelphia, Texas or Toronto … You have all your creature comforts where you are, and you’re telling people who don’t have any house or have inadequate housing, who don’t have electricity, who have challenges with food and water, that there’s some fragility in some supplies, that they must go back to the dark ages.”

Gonsalves said this was “just absurd”. 

“So I had to prepare for those who had a sufficiency of means and circumstances to remain down there, and those who thought the better option for them was to come up to St. Vincent, or to go to Bequia or to go to wherever they — some of them went to neighbouring countries, as their circumstances admitted.”

He said this is what was meant by planning properly, “which is what we did”. 

Gov’t didn’t expect hurricane when it built wooden school

The prime minister also gave an update on the three schools in Union Island.

He said that in the case of the Mary Hutchinson Primary, the smaller of the two elementary schools, there was a project to build a new campus to replace the one that had been built in the 1990s.

“I don’t know whether it was constructed by a baker or a candlestick maker, but it was not well constructed,” Gonsalves said adding that the government had to do something because the school had been failing apart “and represented a danger”. 

“So, we built a temporary school out of board, as we have done in other places in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and that school, you didn’t factor in that a hurricane going come. So, the hurricane came and blew down that temporary school.”

He was speaking one day after MP for the Southern Grenadines, Terrance Ollivierre, an opposition lawmaker, noted that Union Island residents had opposed the construction of the wooden school. 

The prime minister said that with the hurricane having destroyed the temporary wooden school, there was no sense in building back another temporary school.

Gonsalves said that at first, it appeared that it was possible to have the  Stephanie Brown Primary School ready for the new school year, which began officially on Sept. 2.

“… but on a proper inquiry, it could not have been done in time. The repairs are, the reconstruction of that taking more time,” Gonsalves said.

He said the government decided to “focus on getting Union Island Secondary School, knowing that people are going to be up here (in St. Vincent), students are going to be up here too, with their parents, and you figured out from the numbers that they can be housed at Union Island secondary school”.

The prime minister said some people had suggested that the government repair the old Union Island Secondary School.

“I asked that question. The structural engineers went and said, to repair it would be reckless, because not so much the cost or the time. 

“…  some things have deteriorated so much because that school was built, I think, in 1975 and … even if you have proceeded to repair, it was assessed that in practical terms, it will still represent a danger…”

He said the Mary Hutchinson Primary School, which is being converted to a concrete structure, would be ready for the second term, which begins January 2025, “… if you have enough persons at that time with housing and all the facilities to feel that they will go there”. 

The prime minister said that the government is also repairing the Stephanie Browne primary school in Clifton, adding that in the interim, the Union Island Secondary School can accommodate the reduced numbers of students on the island. 

“Because as the numbers were trickling in, you were seeing that it was more than likely that you will have many more students up here,” Gonsalves said.

“Of course, there’s a flexibility. … We have space; if persons want to leave here and go down there back, as the circumstances admit, so be it. I don’t think you could have a policy clearer and more practical than this,’ the prime minister said.