Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon has expressed frustration that several schools repaired after Hurricane Beryl last year were again destroyed by Hurricane Melissa, raising questions about construction standards.

Morris Dixon, who toured damaged schools across Trelawny and St James this week, said she was deeply disappointed that some which were repaired less than a year ago had suffered the same fate.

“What made me quite unhappy was the fact that last year, after Hurricane Beryl, some of those very schools were repaired, and one year later, we’re back at repairing them. So that raises questions for me about the quality of work that would have been done, and it also raises other questions about standards and the standards of our schools,” she said during a media briefing on Thursday.

Morris Dixon said she has asked Jamaica’s multilateral partners to work with the Government to review school building standards and emphasised that a long-term solution must include designing stronger, more resilient infrastructure that can withstand increasingly frequent and intense storms.

“It’s not acceptable that you have a hurricane one year and you fix it, and then the next year you’re back at it again. And so, we will be doing that work. We have to build schools that are climate resilient [but] here are many schools that have done a tremendous job, they are trying to help themselves, and they’ll add a classroom here and a classroom there, or they’ll do some work on a new hall or something like that,” she said.

She revealed that more than 600 schools have sustained damage, with some now entirely unusable.

“Some schools just don’t exist anymore,” she reported, noting that she visited at least one where “not one room can be used.”

Her comments came as the Ministry of Education works to assess the full extent of the damage and devise solutions that will allow students to resume face-to-face classes safely.

Morris Dixon said the situation raises serious questions about the quality of previous repairs and the construction methods used on school expansions and additional buildings.

Despite the widespread devastation, Morris Dixon praised the resilience of school communities, especially in western Jamaica, where clean-up efforts began immediately after the October 29 hurricane. She said teachers, principals, communities and sports teams have rallied to help clear debris.

“As I went around to schools yesterday, there were people from Kingston, from St Catherine. I had football teams that were there, that were working to help to clean the schools,” she noted.

To support these efforts, the ministry has begun issuing clean-up grants to affected schools. The grants range from $300,000 to $1 million, depending on the severity of damage.