Students leaving the $2.6 billion Hosororo Secondary School in Region One are expected to be equipped with at least one technical skill, as the Ministry of Education moves to expand Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at the new institution.
Education Minister Sonia Parag and Assistant Chief Education Officer (Secondary) Sherwyn Blackman recently toured the school, which has been outfitted with smart classrooms and laboratories for Information Technology, Biology, Chemistry, Home Economics and TVET.
The complex also includes dormitories and living quarters for teachers, which are intended to allow the institution to accommodate students and educators from communities across the Mabaruma sub-district and other parts of Barima-Waini.
During the tour, Parag said the availability of accommodation would allow the school to enrol more students and provide greater access to secondary education for children from surrounding communities.
“The big push is also on TVET and ensuring that every child leaving secondary school [leaves] with a skill in TVET,” she said.
Among the programmes expected to be offered are furniture making, building technology, technical drawing and small-engine repairs. Parag said the courses were selected with the needs of the surrounding communities in mind so that young people could be prepared to take up available employment.
“We want to ensure that all of what the community needs, we can be able to prepare the young people to step in and take those jobs,” she said, adding that the new academic year should be an “exciting” one for the students.
Blackman, meanwhile, outlined the intended use of the specialised classrooms and equipment during the walkthrough.
The ministry said the school would play a major role in expanding universal access to secondary education in the Mabaruma sub-district. Students are expected to pursue mainstream academic subjects while also becoming proficient in at least one technical area relevant to their communities.
The Hosororo Secondary School project, however, was completed well behind its original schedule.
Contracts for the complex were signed in July 2023, with the work initially expected to be completed within eight months. Former education minister Priya Manickchand had said that, if construction proceeded as planned, students could have begun attending the school by September 2024.
That deadline was missed. By September 2024, the teaching block was reported to be only about 35% complete, although site-development works and teachers’ quarters were said to have been completed. Manickchand later disclosed that the contract of one contractor had been terminated for non-performance.
The Ministry of Education subsequently set January 24, 2026 as a revised completion date. The school began accepting students on a phased basis on January 20 but construction was still ongoing.
At the time, APNU parliamentarian Sherod Duncan criticised the decision to accommodate students while construction was continuing and called for a forensic examination of the project, including its procurement, payments, variations, supervision and delays.
The ministry had previously said the complex would eventually accommodate as many as 800 students, with dormitory space for approximately 350 children and living quarters for 30 teachers. Earlier project descriptions had placed its capacity at more than 500 students, with accommodation for 200 students and 20 teachers.
The ministry’s latest presentation described Hosororo Secondary as one of the country’s most modern educational facilities but did not state whether all remaining construction works had now been completed.
Discussion