This week, the Education Ministry will be officially inaugurating the St Benedict College Boys’ Secondary School in Kirkop. The school is being dubbed the flagship project of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, acting as a model for future schools to be built upon.

St Benedict College is easily the most modern and well-equipped school on the island. The school is sleek, brightly-coloured and furnished with modern furniture and state-of-the-art equipment. The building includes 150 airy and spacious rooms: 42 classrooms, 35 resource rooms, nine science labs, eight technology labs, eight computer labs, two rooms for business studies and graphical communications rooms.

Apart from these, one also finds well-equipped guidance and counseling, art, PSD, drama, music and audio-visual rooms, besides rooms used for administration purposes, a number of store rooms and even a clinic. All rooms, toilets and recreational areas are fully accessible, keeping in mind students with special needs. In fact, the school includes two lifts, and minimal use of ramps.

The college also boasts excellent sport facilities. The college has a seven-a-side synthetic turf football pitch surrounded by a 200-metre long synthetic athletics track with six lanes. The college will soon benefit from additional sport facilities as a new regional sport centre on the Cottonera sport complex model will be built next door to the school.

A modern school built with modern concepts must consider its environmental responsibility. The college has been designed to minimise usage of water and electricity and also to store rainwater and generate clean energy. Different systems of water distribution are used. First class potable water as supplied by the Water Services Corporation is used for human consumption; another system stores second class water collected from the college roofs.

This is utilised for domestic use like washing of floors and toilet flushing. Another system utilises water stored in underground reservoirs collected from outside recreational areas and grounds, this is then used for irrigation purposes. In total, the rainwater catchment’s capacity is 2.5 million litres, enough to see the water requirements of the college throughout the year.

Electricity usage is being minimised by using the latest high efficiency lighting technology (T5 technology). The college has a solar power system which can produce over 10 per cent of the annual consumption. A wind turbine is being considered and it is hoped that the two systems in tandem will make the school a zero carbon dioxide contributor, i.e. a school which produces the same amount of “clean” energy as much as it uses fossil fuel-generated energy. These technologies will ultimately serve as educational tools for the students at St Benedict College, for learning the science behind them and as an exposure for the environmental protection requirement that our planet urgently needs.

St Benedict’s has the latest IT technology. All computers in the school are networked using a wireless system which allows students and teachers to use computers and laptops all around the school without worrying about network cables and wires. Over 10,000 metres of wiring were avoided by opting for this system.

Anyone who has the opportunity to visit the college will immediately come to the conclusion that government is truly committed towards providing the very best for students attending state schools. The quality, freshness of design and the state-of-the-art facilities are an important element in providing quality education albeit not the only element.

On the academic side, St Benedict’s Boys’ Secondary is also a school of firsts. The new school now forms part of the St Benedict College, a group of primary and secondary schools. Birzebbuga, Ghaxaq, Gudja, Kirkop, Mqabba, Safi, Qrendi and Zurrieq primary schools have been linked together and with the St Benedict’s Boys’ Secondary at Kirkop. Eventually a Girls’ Secondary School on similar lines will also form part of this college.

The college concept is new to state schools and is being piloted in this scholastic year. Apart from St Benedict’s, there are also the Cottonera College, the Gozo College and the Special Schools’ Network. The colleges provide a better framework within which schools can work together and also provide better transition between the various levels of schooling.

At St Benedict’s College, the government is also piloting a new system whereby students who passed their Junior Lyceum exam attend the same school as those who did not pass this exam. Although students follow different programmes depending on their abilities, they are set together for 25 per cent of their learning entitlement.

The College in Kirkop is but one of the projects that FTS has delivered and more are yet to come. Since its inception, the Foundation has carried out projects in all state schools with the major works including the refurbishment of Sir Adrian Dingli Girls’ Junior Lyceum in Pembroke, the complete modernisation of the Luqa primary school, a major extension and refurbishment at the Marsascala primary school. FTS has also started building a new secondary school in the grounds of the Junior Lyceum at Handaq, and will shortly start works on the Verdala Junior Lyceum, the building of a new secondary school in Mosta and a primary school in Pembroke.

Considering all the work that is being carried out to modernise state schools as well as the proposals put forward by the government to reform the education system, the future looks exciting and promising. It is hoped that as recent developments have resulted in improvements in students’ attainment, current developments will continue to strengthen our educational base.

Article provided by the Education Ministry