The Orihuela City Council ‘s contracting committee has already proposed a company to undertake the land adaptation work for what will be Orihuela Infant and Primary School Number 20. However, the educational facility will now not be ready until at least November.
It will be located on a plot of land on Níspero Street on the Orihuela Costa, parallel to the road that connects the La Zenia shopping centre and the Villamartín golf course. The centre as such was administratively created at the end of 2022 and the opening was set for September 2023, but the process has been delayed for many months. Meanwhile, the other public Infant and Primary schools are unable to cope with the demand for school places.
The contract, which is worth just over 200,000 euros including VAT, took almost a year to be put out to tender. Firstly, four different sites were considered and then the preparation of the specifications for the works was delayed a long time.
When the contract is signed, the company will begin work to cement the ground with a slab so that the prefabricated units can be placed. Only when this work is finished will the company contracted by the Generalitat to install the prefabricated modules be able to begin its work, which will last for two months. The budget of 1.2 million euros includes the assembly, rental for several years and dismantling of these classrooms.
The City Council’s adaptation works will continue, at the same time, with the repair of the perimeter fence and the preparation of some facilities such as children’s games, a sports court and new lighting. This same site served for many years as the educational centre of the Playas de Orihuela School, which was also in prefabricated buildings for fifteen years and which opened its new centre in September 2018.
The project for School Number 20 includes the launch of a school made entirely of prefabricated buildings with two lines for Infants and Primary: two classrooms per level for approximately 300 students distributed next to the common areas, on the ground floor and one floor up.
The centre requires a minimum amount of external and access space and although the layout of the building physically allows for them all to be distributed on the ground floor, this would not comply with this legislation.
The school year officially begins on 9th September. All families who have applied for school places in Orihuela Costa for Infant and Primary have done so at the Los Dolses and Playas de Orihuela Schools. But both are already overcrowded due to the huge demand for school places. Despite the fact that there is a lot of mobility among students – who can leave the centre at any time during the school year depending on family mobility – both public schools have used up all their available space to accommodate more classrooms and the ratios – number of students per group – are the highest in the Valencian Community together with those in Torrevieja.
The management teams are overwhelmed with the requests for school places. Initially, some of the students received in recent months by both centres would be sent to the barracks centre when it is ready, with the school year started. Although this is something that the Ministry of Education has not confirmed. Last year, many of the students were directly enrolled in these two centres as pupils of Number 20.