Nov 29 - Government Announces Three More New Schools
- New St. Martin’s ready by 2019
- New Bishop Fitzgerald and Governor’s Meadow by 2020
The Government has revealed plans for the next phase in its schools’ development plan. The Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo and the Minister for Education John Cortes, together with the Director of Education Mrs Jacqueline Mason today presented the designs for the new St Martin’s, Governor’s Meadow and Bishop Fitzgerald Schools.
The location for these will now be the site of Europort Avenue where the Bishop Fitzgerald and Governor’s Meadow are currently sited as well as the sports fields adjacent to Westside School. This change of location follows representation from Gibraltar NASUWT and the school staffs who felt that newly built schools should be preferred over the original plans which were to convert Westside. The area occupied currently by Westside Comprehensive will, once pupils are back in the newly built schools, be used for the Government’s housing project.
Construction of St Martin’s School will start within the next two months. The other two schools will be temporarily located to the sites of Westside and/or St Anne’s once these are vacated next year. St Martin’s will be completed in 2019, with the other two following in 2020.
All three schools will have a much larger footprint, to better accommodate the facilities as well as to cater for expected increases in the school population.
Minister John Cortes said, “I am very pleased at the plans revealed today, in particular as we have been able to address concerns raised by the Teachers’ Union and the schools. We will continue to work with the schools to achieve the excellent quality that we attained recently in Notre Dame.”
The Chief Minister said: “Since the GSLP/Liberals came to power we have already opened three new schools. Three more schools are currently under construction and three more are in the planning stage. Gibraltar has never before seen such an investment in our children’s education. This is an exciting time for education in Gibraltar, and one that promises a bright future for all our children.”
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