A contract was awarded to Quality Construction for more than $4 million recently to build a multipurpose facility that is expected to accommodate students of the Jost Van Dyke Primary School, as well as serve as a recreational facility and a meeting space for community activities.

While speaking at a pre-construction meeting with members of the community on the island recently, de Castro suggested that it would not be far-fetched to have persons engaged in secondary education at the facility and even accommodate students of the H Lavity Stoutt Community College (HLSCC) in some capacity as well.

de Castro said the plan for the project has taken into consideration the growth and the overall reality of wanting to secure the educational future of the island’s children, “not just on the primary level but also potentially secondary and .., having a space for tertiary classes as well.”

“Technology is very much present and so there’s a potential even for dialogue to take place to see how HLSCC could use technology to have classes over here as well,” the Education Minister stated.

She added: “I believe the potential is great and I believe that it’s important that as we seek to cement the legacy of education on Jost Van Dyke, we look at it not just based on what they’ve had in the past, which is primary education, but we look to see how we could incorporate secondary, tertiary and other opportunities that the college could potentially offer.”

The minister pointed to the fact that the island is one of the territory’s tourism hot spots and asked how the hospitality programme at the HLSCC could be leveraged to the island’s advantage to allow for classes to take place there as well.

“I think the potential is endless and I believe having the facility allows for those conversations to now take place so that we could move this forward,” she stated.