Schools ready for new academic year but poor roads a problem

MOUNT HANNAH, Hanover — While several schools in Hanover Western are well advanced in their preparations for the new academic year following the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October, extremely poor roads remain a major concern for at least one administrator. The road conditions are so bad to the point where the... resources that the Government sends to the school by contracting couriers, they don’t even want to come,” Mount Hannah Primary School Principal Nicholas James complained to the Jamaica Observer.

​James recounted a recent dispute with a truck driver contracted by the Ministry of Education to deliver desks and chairs to his school, noting that the driver refused to complete the journey. Poor road conditions in the community of Mount Peace. (Photo: Anthony Lewis) “He told me that before he takes them up to my school he would rather take them back to the location where he took them from,” stated James.

To salvage the delivery, James had to hire a small truck to retrieve the items from the driver who stopped about half a mile away in Maryland. Traversing the nine-mile road from the capital town of Lucea to the school takes more than an hour. According to James, public transportation is severely limited as a direct result of the poor infrastructure.

“It is so bad that public transportation is severely affected... there are like two or three buses that I wouldn’t say are consistent, so the community members suffer greatly. It’s really heart-wrenching, [and] atrocious now,” the principal said.

A fully repaired Cove Primary School located in the coastal community of Cove in Hanover. (Photo: Anthony Lewis) “It affects the students and teachers because I have teachers and students who come from Lucea and it is so difficult sometimes that in some cases, teachers can only come halfway, and we have to be asking bikers to pick them up and carry them up. Sometimes I myself have to drop teachers down to Lucea because of the lack of transportation,” added James.

​Clifton resident Tanesha Kerr faces similar hurdles with her 13-year-old child, who must commute from Clifton to Lucea before taking a second vehicle to Rhodes Hall High School in Orange Bay. With no registered public passenger vehicle (PPV) operators willing to service the route due to the deteriorated road conditions, availability and…