It has a requalification component, but, in the end, it is about building a new school. The old school nº5 in Olhão, located in Bairro 28 de Setembro, has already begun to undergo a total transformation, which will make it a «fantastic space», with all the conditions required of a modern educational establishment.
The foundation stone for the construction of the new school, which will cost around 2 million euros, was laid this Monday, the day when classes officially began in many educational establishments in the country. At nº5 in Olhão, there are no children, but there are already machines, cranes and workers, who will ensure the intervention that will allow the reopening of the school at the beginning of the 2020/21 school year.
«The work has already started and we are going to remodel the six existing classrooms, in the original buildings, of the Centenaries Plan [for the construction of schools, promoted during the Estado Novo] . We are also going to use another existing building, where the multi-disability classrooms used to function, and build three more classrooms. In other words, the school will now have nine rooms», explained the mayor of Olhão António Pina, on the sidelines of the official ceremony for laying the foundation stone of the work.
“Afterwards, a new building will be built, which will significantly improve conditions for children with disabilities, as they deserve it. In this new block, in addition to the multi-disability rooms, a refectory, a multi-purpose room and a library will also be built," added the mayor from Olhão.
The outdoor spaces will also "all be re-qualified, in order to allow children to play in safety".
This intervention had been planned for a long time. “This is one of the schools that, in order not to have double schedules, had to keep two classes in containers. However, there was an improvement in our 1st cycle school system and, two years ago, we stopped having schools with double schedules. There was an urgent need to end this situation of containerization of classrooms», he explained.
"Fortunately, from a shortlist of five schools in the Algarve whose construction will be financed by community funds, Olhão managed to have two," added António Pina. The contribution will be 60%, that is, more than one million euros.
And the intervention was supposed to have started before, but, "due to events that are foreign to us, namely the fact that the first tender was deserted and, later, the delay in obtaining a visa from the Court of Auditors, it was delayed a year."
“Students have not been here since the beginning of the previous school year. But it was not possible to start before. In the first contest, with the complaints of the second, third and fourth competitors, the proposals were all eventually annulled. A new contest was needed. We are talking about a work of almost two million euros, which is a complicated tender procedure. Then we had to wait for the Court of Auditors and the loan we had also had to be redone, as the term had already expired», he framed.
While the work is not completed, the children of this school are having classes in containers, in the neighboring EB 2,3 Paula Nogueira, the headquarters of the Group. And, despite this being a temporary solution, António Pina guarantees that the students have «conditions as in any new classroom, since the containers have good natural lighting, comfort and air conditioning».
The work should last 18 months, that is, a year and a half. “We hope to have the work ready in March or April 2020. Even with possible delays, in September of that year we want to have the conditions to reopen it and have the children back in this fantastic space.
The other work for which Olhão obtained community funding is the “requalification of the old lady EB 2,3 Paula Nogueira”. In this case, the work costs 3,2 million euros, 60% of which will be guaranteed by the European Union.
“We are almost finished with the project. Here, the difficulty will be launching the requalification of the Paula Nogueira school at the same time as these works are underway at nº5. But surely everyone will understand that we have to go through this squeeze – both the school community and those in charge of education – because if we miss the opportunity to carry out this intervention with 60% funding, it will never be done», illustrated António Pina.
Until the end of his term, the municipal executive still wants to requalify «a few more schools in the Centenaries Plan, with priority for nº4, where the cafeteria space has very few conditions and the library is an adapted space». António Pina says that the requalification project for this educational establishment is «completed by the end of the year».
«We already have the project for the requalification of the Quelfes school ready and we are going to start those for schools No. 1 and Brancanes. We still have to invest another 2 million euros in the school park, until the end of the mandate. Education is a great priority», concluded the mayor of Olhão.
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues|Sul Informação and Adilson Vicente|Câmara de Olhão
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