GOVERNMENT has to revisit the controversial EduTech programme, but not with a view to scrapping it.

Even with two additional years, the Education Sector Enhancement Programme (EduTech) could not be completed within that time frame, Minister of Education Ronald Jones told the House of Assembly yesterday as the debate on the 2008-2009 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure moved into the third day.

"The two years come to a conclusion on the 31st
of December, 2008,
and we're going to have
to revisit the options relative to ensuring that
the schools and
the technology are adequately put in place.

"There are schools which are in really terrible shape . . . . Wesley Hall Junior School, The Lodge School, Harrison College which is in need
of tremendous repair, and there are many other schools across Barbados which have to undergo that kind of work.

"It's going to challenge the people of Barbados
to ensure that we're able to conclude work on these schools so that our children and our teachers would be working
in conditions which can cause them to be more productive," said
the Christ Church East Central representative.

Jones added that EduTech was unable
to "provide the kind
of dent" hoped for.

"To date we've only been able to cover about
a third of the physical plants going back to 1998 when we would have started this exercise
with the assistance
of the Caribbean Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

"We've expended quite substantial sums
on this exercise. We've completed to date some 35 Government schools, four private schools and there are others still ongoing
as I speak," said
the minister.

He also noted that
with the inefficiencies
in the island's education system, the $495 million allotted in this year's Estimates, albeit a "significant amount", was just not enough to do "everything that we have to do with education
on an annual basis".

Jones told the Lower Chamber that the Democratic Labour Party supported the programme which was fraught
with "several difficulties", but they wanted to get value for money.

"This was the largest project when it was rolled out for this country, over $450 million . . . . One wanted to see that money being spent effectively, being spent wisely and
in fact impacting on the education sector as it was supposed to do,"
he asserted.

Contractors working "very slowly" and an inadequate labour force were among the challenges of the programme, said Jones. (DS)