Education Ministry establishes oversight committee on Hurricane Melissa school repairs

The Ministry of Education has established a special committee to monitor and review Hurricane Melissa reconstruction works at schools damaged by the Category Five storm.

Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon today told a post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House that the Hurricane Melissa School Infrastructure Recovery and Resilience Oversight Committee is to help in terms of accountability, quality assurance, and transparency.

She said the move serves to give a formalised structure to efforts being undertaken by the ministry, noting that the National Education Trust is the body that has been driving the repairs, which are being done at a cost of $26 billion.

The education minister noted that she, along with other ministry personnel, has been visiting schools to monitor the progress of repairs.

Dixon noted that more than 300 schools were severely damaged by the hurricane, which hit Jamaica last October.

It primarily affected western Jamaica, which includes Westmoreland, Hanover, St Elizabeth and St James.

The education minister noted that some of these schools will require brand-new construction, which she said will go into next year as well as into the following year for bigger projects.

Given the level of work, Morris Dixon said strong monitoring and oversight are needed.

She said the education oversight committee, which will be established for one year, is to, among other things, provide independent assessment of the repair progress as part of efforts to drive accountability.

“So in terms of the mandate, they're going to be reviewing and receiving and interrogating regular progress reports from the National Education Trust and the TSU. The NET is really the body that's driving the repairs…and so this committee will receive the updates. They'll get project status, schedules, expenditure, quality, safety, defects, risks, and contractor performance. They're going to get a lot of information that they will be assessing, and they'll be doing quite a bit of quality assurance,” Morris Dixon said.

“They'll also be asked to identify any delays, defects, capacity constraints, [and] unresolved approvals. In many of these schools, we actually have to be getting approvals because we're doing completely brand-new builds. And also we'll be asking them to look out for any barriers to timely and satisfactory completion of school. They will also work to engage with the contractors and other delivery partners through the relevant contracting or technical authority to clarify what challenges may be there, and they will also make recommendations on sequencing, corrective measures, contractor performance management, which is very important, quality improvement, risk mitigation,” she added.

Morris Dixon said the ministry will continue to make public the progress of school repairs.

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