Demographic growth, which makes Arona the third most populated municipality on the Island and the fifth most populous in the Canary Islands – it exceeds 100,000 registered inhabitants – leads to a greater demand for schooling. Given this, The local government raised this Friday to the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands the “enormous importance” of the construction of institutes and expanding some existing ones. The objective is “to face the urgent need that we have to respond to our neighbors and to respond to the educational pressure, both the current one and the one that is expected for the coming years”, according to the mayor, Jose Julian Mena.
The councilors for Education and Urban Planning, Julia Morales Borges and Leopoldo Díaz Oda, respectively, held a meeting with the Minister of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuela Armas, to whom they reported the situation and informed of the need to plan the development of centers teachers for the coming years in Arona. The latest construction in this area is the IES de Parque de la Reina, which will apparently come into service imminently, and which will replace the center of Guaza.
“We need to respond to current and future educational pressure”
Education and the City Council advanced this Friday in the municipal approach to cede land to the regional Executive for the construction of new Secondary Education institutes. They would be located in the mediocrity area (it remains to be defined whether in Valle San Lorenzo or the urban area of Arona and in Cho. In the case of El Fraile, the local government’s proposal is to build a Compulsory Education Center (CEO). With Therefore, the students of this town would remain in the same complex until completing ESO, since they currently go to the IES of Guaza and, when they are transferred, to the one of Parque La Reina.The fourth demand refers to the expansion of the IES Los Christians.
Arona City Council and Education plan to hold a new meeting –the presence of the regional councilor is expected- in the coming weeks with the group of directors of the educational centers of the municipality. They will address the situation of the educational pressure that is registered in the existing facilities, so that the Ministry of Education collects the precise information first hand. It is about establishing a road map in which the educational community participates.
In this regard, José Julián Mena thanked “the predisposition of the counselor, Manuela Armas, to jointly plan the development of educational centers in Arona, which needs them as well as the whole of the South region, which is a metropolitan area of Tenerife that demands essential services such as education or quality public health”.
The cleaning of the work of Parque de la Reina is carried out in days and from there will be the transfer of the IES Guaza
The Queen’s Park High School
Although it was not part of the agenda this Friday, officially, Education confirmed the imminent transfer of IES Guaza students to the new Parque de La Reina center. Ministry sources indicated that “in the next few days the cleaning of the work will be carried out. From there the transfer procedure begins.”
The new construction adds three years of delay. The fear conveyed by the educational community is that it will come into service at the limit of its capacity to absorb the demand for schooling in the area. Currently, around 70 teachers teach classes to more than 500 students in the IES Guaza barracks, a provisionally built campus 21 years ago and which does not meet optimal conditions.
The IES Parque de la Reina has 22 classrooms, distributed in 18 to teach ESO and four for Baccalaureate, in addition to others (two per subject) for Music, Computer Science, unfolding, Plastic and Visual and Languages, among other resources.
