Some of the Early Childhood and Primary Education Schools, CEIP, in Arrecife were built more than 50 years ago, and the passage of time has taken its toll on their facilities without anything being done in this time for their maintenance and conservation, so many of the structural deficiencies they present are very noticeable.
So noticeable that when we arrived at the Arrecife City Council in 2019 we could not believe that many children were receiving classes in such deteriorated classrooms, windows with woodworm, walls with humidity... in short, conditions not suitable for our students to receive a quality education.
The first school I visited was the CEIP Adolfo Topham, where I had studied as a child, and the first impression upon seeing the facilities was one of sadness. I continued through the CEIP of Titerroy and the desolation increased, and so I continued with visits to each of the schools in the municipality without understanding how it was possible, for example, that the gardens in some of them were full of garbage, cans thrown away... in short. Despairing!
Perhaps I expected, in the times we are in, more modern schools, in accordance with the times we live in, but no, in some like Los Geranios or Benito Méndez, there are students who continue to receive classes in barracks.
Education is a very important pillar in our society and until our arrival to the Government of Arrecife the resources that had been allocated for the maintenance and conservation of educational centers were scarce. From the Arrecife City Council we are working to improve each of the schools, despite the bureaucracy that the operation of the institutions entails when it comes to having funds for the most urgent needs.
Thanks to the work we have done from the municipal corporation we have changed the appearance, comfort and accessibility of educational facilities. When we arrived at the City Council we verified what was the reality of the public educational facilities: the windows of many schools could not even be opened, deteriorated doors, obsolete bathrooms... and we have gradually changed the furniture, windows, doors, access gates to the centers, Antonio Zerolo, Titerroy, Adolfo Topham, Benito Méndez, all now have the possibility of having windows that can be closed when winter arrives or that open during the summer, something as simple and fundamental as that.
And at the same time we have normalized that the maintenance of educational centers is the usual thing and, for that reason, we have put out to tender the contract for the maintenance of the facilities, something that had never been done before, or the extension of the cleaning contract that implies an increase in the staff destined for this purpose.
During these two years we have been working on improvements in each of the schools. We have several projects that we will present soon, some in contracting, others about to go out to tender. Our commitment is to modernize the schools, to make them safe, more accessible, in accordance with the times we live in, looking to the future and without patching, putting a solution to the entrenched problems.
For decades the schools of Arrecife have not mattered to the local political class, nor to the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, which has not invested in modernizing them.
Both the mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, and I work so that the schools of this municipality move with the times, are easily accessible and safe schools for our little ones.
María Rosario González Perdomo
Councilor of Education, Employment and Local Development Arrecife City Council
