Still no action at GC Foster swimming pool
THE more than 200 physical education student-teachers at GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sport in Spanish Town, St Catherine, are transported to the Fort Clarence Beach in Portmore each week to participate in the mandatory swimming class, while the abandoned Olympic-size swimming pool on the campus remains filled with stagnant water and debris.
The only Olympic-size pool in the island, the facility which has never been used since it was built more than three decades ago, is now a haven for frogs and mosquitoes.
The 60-metre-long pool was built along with the college by the Cuban Government as a gift to the Jamaican people in 1980 to serve as the premier sport education facility in the region.
But, despite it being larger than the swimming pool at the National Stadium, numerous plans to utilise it have not materialised.
“I wouldn’t refer to it as a ‘white elephant, but it is unfortunate that the facility was not utilised, especially since it was given as a gift, but it was not that persons were not trying to get it into use,” Principal of GC Foster College Edward Shakes told the Jamaica Observer.
Among efforts over the years to get the pool up and running was one announced in 2010 by Shakes to develop a programme to prepare physical education teachers to teach swimming in schools. For this to be done, he said then, a number of changes needed to be made to the pool.
He said that the pool is too deep as it holds nearly a million gallons of water, which would cost close to $1 million per month to maintain.
As such, he announced that the school would seek to modify the facility and instead create a 25-metre pool at an appropriate depth. He projected that this part of the project would be completed by March 2011.
In 2011, Ventley Brown, athletics director at GC Foster College, said that the college had been working on the pool for the past two years with the purchase of water pumps from donations received by GlaxoSmith-Kline of $1.35 million, and the Social Development Fund $3.5 million. The college, he said, was still in need of $26 million to complete the project.
Last June, Shakes again announced that work on the refurbishing of the swimming pool would commence in two months, as engineering designs were drawn up, and plans put in place to erect spectator seating around the pool.
“We expect to start the actual construction within a month or two,” Shakes reported then.
But, despite the announcements, the college continues to rack up millions of dollar each year to transport the student-teachers to rented facilities at either the Fort Clarence Beach in Portmore or the YMCA pool in Spanish Town for the mandatory swimming classes.
While Shakes was unable to say how much is spent each year to transport the students and rent the facilities, one student estimated that it runs into millions each year.
“We have three different classes of about 30 people each doing swimming for the week, and sometimes the bus has to make more than one trip for a class,” said one student, who requested anonymity.
According to the student, there are times when they have been turned away from having class at the Fort Clarence Beach because of non-payment of fees to use the facility.
“”We have turned up there for class and have been refused entry because the money was not paid and the lecturer had to go in and speak to somebody,” he stated further.
“It is unfortunate that the only Olympic-size pool is here and it is not operational,” said another student-teacher, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The student, who took the mandatory swimming course last semester, said that some persons were transported to the beach for classes, while others went to another pool in Kingston.
“Some students say they prefer not to go to the beach, because it is more dangerous to learn to swim there,” he told the Observer.
According to the degree student, if the pool was to become operational again it would help not only the college but also the wider Spanish Town community.
Another student, who also requested anonymity, said that there are a number of factors which hinder performance learning in the ocean as opposed to the pool. Outside of those challenges, the student said that they had to endure constant distractions in an environment which is less than conducive to learning.
“We have had various experiences with distractions. One time some tourists stopped to take pictures with us in the middle of the class, and another time some men came over smoking weed and calling to the females; so there was just a lot of distraction,” he said.
He also said that they often spend half the class time waiting on the college bus to complete another assignment before transporting them.
“Sometimes we spend an hour out of the two-hour class waiting under the tree for the bus to come back from another event,” he said.
The students are also disappointed that they have not been kept up to date on what is being done with the pool which has fallen into ruin.
“To see such a big pool just sitting there when it could be a major earner for GC Foster, which is now strapped for cash, is really not good,” he said.
Last week, Shakes told the Observer that the plans to make the pool operable, this time around, are more concrete.
Shakes said that his optimism that these plans will get off the ground, this time around, comes from the new component being examined.
According to Shakes, there is now a business plan to include a commercial aspect as part of operating the project.
He said that the plan includes making the pool more shallow while maintaining the present length of 60 metres.
“We had contemplated making it smaller, but the Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Education recognise that it is the only Olympic-size pool [in the island] and so there is a need to maintain that as an option to the National Stadium,” he said.
However, Shakes said that the college needs between $50 to $60 million to renovate the facility and construct changing rooms.
The commercial component, he reiterated, is important as the college cannot afford to maintain the facility from its budget.
The college is hoping to make this business dream come alive with the help of corporate Jamaica.
However, the college’s ability to roll out a full swimming programme will continue to be impacted until the pool is restored, according to Shakes. This is as the college moves to include swimming in the curriculum for all of its students.
The lack of a swimming pool at the college is also impacting its ability to train swimming coaches to fill the current shortage in the island.