"Dilapidated schools get repairs after 15 year wait''. At the same time, in Bermuda there was a headline concerning complaints by parents that St.

George's Secondary School would be reopening a week late because it had been discovered over the summer that the roof of one of the school's old buildings needed replacing for safety. At the same time, Bermuda is in the process of spending millions of dollars preparing to build the mega high school at Prospect, upgrading other schools as middle schools and building at Bermuda College to amalgamate the Collage campus at Stonington.

Government schools on the main islands of the Bahamas have not been repaired for nearly 15 years and are now undergoing major repairs under the new Bahamian government. Education Director Zelma Dean has said that most of the Bahamas schools had major maintenance problems because no serious repairs had been done to them for the past 15 years.

Just over a year ago the PLP government of Sir Lynden Pindling was voted out of office in the Bahamas after a long and highly controversial reign. Sir Lynden has close friends in Bermuda and flew here by private jet to help the Progressive Labour Party open its refurbished headquarters at Alaska Hall. Sir Lynden Pindling was voted out of office in August of 1992 and it has been announced in the Bahamas that the Pindling Government, which is now under close investigation, left those islands with a staggering debt of more than a billion and a quarter dollars. Clearly that money was not spent on schools.

According to the Nassau Tribune, teachers and students in the public school system of the Bahamas have complained for years about the sub-standard environment in Bahamian schools. Right now an emergency $15 million is being spent by the cash-strapped new government of the Bahamas to refurbish the Bahamas schools, including painting and general repairs. The Tribune says that this week students and teachers returned to refurbished classrooms with functioning bathrooms and water cooler systems that work.

A Nassau Tribune news team visited various schools and found broken walls being rebuilt, new ceilings replacing gaping holes, broken windows and doors being repaired, rotten wood was being replaced and bathrooms being made to function. The grounds of schools were being mowed for the first time in years.

Mrs. Dean said the problems arose because Bahamian schools were not maintained. There are 48,000 students and 2,300 teachers in the public school system of the Bahamas. Mrs. Dean said they would have to keep up the standards in the refurbished schools because the government cannot afford the $15 million "every year''. Mrs. Dean added that parents would be held responsible for such damage as graffiti.