The works of the Costa Teguise Institute have been resumed after an agreement reached by the Ministry of Education and the awarding company. This was explained on Tuesday by the Deputy Minister of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuela Armas, on Radio Lanzarote, who was confident that students can start the new school year in this infrastructure.
"Everything is resolved. An agreement has been reached with the company, because some work units were missing to be defined. The works continue their course and for us it is a joy," said Armas. And if this project did not go ahead and was not launched in September, the Ministry was going to be forced to "put modular classrooms in Teguise, because the students no longer fit."
However, Armas has indicated that this "little joy" has been "drowned" with the cuts in the State budgets, which will mean a real blow to the educational infrastructures of the Canary Islands and Lanzarote. And it is that no new work can be undertaken due to lack of economic items. "All the new works blow up", he said.
But not only the new works are on the ropes, but also the completion of several educational projects is in danger. "We had budgeted 15 million euros for this year to undertake works that are already underway. The works do not usually last a year, they are usually multi-year. We only have that money committed, so we are going to have difficulties," warned the Deputy Minister.
The Canary Islands Plan for Educational Infrastructures disappears
Manuela Armas is especially concerned about the disappearance of the Canary Islands Plan for Educational Infrastructures. "We had received 40 million euros in recent years and now it is not that the item is reduced, it is that it is suppressed", he said. "We are looking at everything well, the technicians are analyzing the budgets, but this has already been advanced to me," Armas lamented.
These cuts affect schools such as La Destila, in Arrecife, whose works will be "very difficult" to carry out. In addition, it also involves the new Institute of Haría, which already had the project completed but that probably cannot be executed and the El Quintero school, in San Bartolomé.
"The State budgets have been a tremendous blow to all the Ministries, for all the Canarians. I know that the budget in general has been reduced, but in the Canary Islands it has been tremendous when the situation is dramatic", Armas lamented. Specifically, the Government of the Canary Islands considers that the Archipelago will receive between 700 and 1,000 million euros less than last year.
