will be taught there, Education Minister the Hon. Clarence Terceira said yesterday.

The charge was made last week by Shadow Education Minister Ms Jennifer Smith, who noted work has begun on the new $40-million senior secondary school at Prospect while the Ministry is still at work on the new curriculum.

"How one could build a school without knowing what you're going to teach in it, I don't know,'' Ms Smith said.

But Dr. Terceira said the 12 subjects that would be taught in the new senior secondary school -- due to open in September, 1997 -- were identified in 1990.

"To say that we're building the thing before we know what to teach is absolute ignorance,'' Dr. Terceira said.

He said he was responding not only to Ms Smith, but to apparent misunderstanding in the community.

A Ministry document titled "Design Guideline for Senior Secondary Schools'', released in September of 1992, linked the subjects that would be taught with the design for the new school, Dr. Terceira said.

"The publication was developed by design architects who consulted with subject specialists of the Ministry and schools.'' The design brief outlined requirements for space, furnishings, and equipment for various instructional areas. It also specified how one teaching area should be located in relation to other related areas.

"For example, the design and technology teaching spaces are adjacent to the teaching spaces for both science and art,'' he said. "Students interested in design are likely to need to take courses in art. Science is a requirement for many aspects of technology.'' Dr. Terceira said the design for the school at Prospect has been vetted with teachers and many parents. "The instructional areas and the relationships among them have been explained during these presentations,'' he said.

Subjects at Prospect will include business, computers, family studies, fine arts, foreign languages, technology, language arts, mathematics, performing arts, physical education, science, and social studies.

Rooms will include administration, guidance, a nurse's office, speech therapy, special education, a resource centre, and the auditorium. Classrooms, typically about 750 square feet, will include tutorial rooms, foreign language, science, and computer labs, and rooms for business, commerce, and music. There will be areas for drama and dance, family studies, housekeeping, cosmetology, communications, manufacturing, construction, transportation, painting, electronics, robotics, computer aided design, and ceramics, among other skills.