The works of the new educational center of Cho-Parque La Reina (Arona), which will replace the IES Guaza, popularly known as the institute of the barracks, “evolve as planned and the work will be completed before the end of the year, as stated the contract”, sources from the Ministry of Education told this newspaper.
The works, which are being carried out on a 13,120-square-meter site ceded by the Arona City Council, should have been completed in January 2020, but remained practically paralyzed for a long time after the construction company, Proyecon Galicia SA, requested a modification of the project and an upward revision of the budget. Now, if the last announcement made by the department headed by Manuela Armas is fulfilled, the building will be finished almost three years after the deadline established in the public tender specifications.
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.
protests
The state of the facilities, 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, mothers, fathers and teachers, who last year In the past they transferred their complaints to the Diputación del Comun. They claim that the ground moves when walking, the walls vibrate, rainwater seeps into the classrooms, the pipes in the bathrooms burst and the roof sheets have come unstuck . “When it’s hot it’s a greenhouse and when it’s cold it’s a freezer”, summed up a teacher.
The new educational center will house 22 classrooms, of which 18 will be for Secondary classes and four for Baccalaureate. It will have two music classrooms, two computer science classrooms, two plastic and visual classrooms, and another two for group splitting for students in Baccalaureate.
The infrastructure will also have a library, two technology spaces, three laboratories, two language classrooms, a multifunction room, a room for therapeutic pedagogy, an assembly hall and a covered sports hall with changing rooms and toilets.
