The Association of Mothers and Fathers of Students (AMPA) of the IES Guaza (Arona) denounces “new breaches” of the Ministry of Education regarding the deadlines to complete the work of the center that will replace the one popularly known as the institute of the barracks, which is Currently building in Cho-Parque La Reina.
The works were to have finished in January 2020, but remained paralyzed after the construction company, Proyecon Galicia SA, requested a modification of the project and an upward revision of the budget.
The works are advancing – this is recognized by the AMPA, which confirms the presence of “some more workers” -, but not at the pace that allows the new deadlines communicated by the Government of the Canary Islands to the AMPA to be met.
“After years of delay, they told us that it would be finished in June, then September, then November… We are tired of being lied to our faces,” one of the members of the Association of Mothers and Fathers of Students. “What the children are going through is not right,” she said, referring to the poor facilities of the prefabricated modules.
“These rainy days, teachers have had to remove water to teach today” (yesterday for the reader), underlines one of the spokespersons for the group of parents. She assures that “time passes and the boys and girls continue to get wet every time it rains, the pipes continue to burst and everything falls apart.”
The Guaza Secondary School, where more than 500 students study and around 70 teachers teach, is the only center built with prefabricated modules that remains open on the island of Tenerife.
The state of the facilities, which were inaugurated in 2002 as a temporary solution to deal with the serious lack of school places in the southern region, has generated numerous protests and demonstrations in recent years by students, parents and teachers.
They ensure that the ground moves when walking, the walls vibrate, rainwater seeps into the classrooms and forces classes to be suspended. In addition, the pipes in the bathrooms burst, lamps have fallen and when the wind blows strongly the sheets of the ceilings have come unstuck, with the consequent risk to the integrity of students, teachers and employees.