The Formentera Council requests budget line for two-line school in Sant Ferran

In anticipation of the Balearic Islands Autonomous Community's imminent budget drafting for the year 2014, this morning in press conference Sònia Cardona, the Formentera Council's councilor of Education, Culture and Local Patrimony, asked the Govern Balear to include a budget line in its investment chapter for the construction of a new two-line school in the town of Sant Ferran. (In Spain, an escola de dos línies, or two-line school, is one that for reasons of capacity has two separate groups for each grade.)

We remind readers that the Formentera Council put a plot of 11,000 square metres in Sant Ferran at the disposition of the Govern Balear's Department of Education, Culture and Higher Education for use in the construction of a new school. Following plenary session approval, the land was officially ceded by Formentera in September 2012, however, the autonomous government neglected to include budget line items for the project in any of last year's budgets.

The Department of Education in Palma committed to drafting plans for the project in the final trimester of 2013 and including a budget line that would allow for work to start in 2014. This week, the Council has issued to the Department of Education and to the recently-named territorial delegate for educational matters in Formentera a request articulating the limitations of the current Sant Ferran primary school in addition to the local consensus regarding the need for a new school building. A 'two-line' model school in Sant Ferran would meet the ever expanding educational needs of Formentera before the situation became unsustainable, thus avoiding the necessity to install prefabricated classrooms.

The Formentera Island Council has taken clear steps to move the 'two-line' project forward; first, providing the Department of Education with a plot of land for the construction of the new Sant Ferran school, and then undertaking the construction of installations to dote the plot with the necessary services. In addition, the Formentera Council has already completed the draft plan for the future bypass road that will link the new school with the main highway, but awaits an effective budgetary coordination with Palma.

The Formentera Island Council will continue working so that the pertinent authorities begin drafting the project and move forward with construction. The 'two-line' project was born of the increased public demand witnessed in Formentera in recent years. This need was already anticipated during the drafting of the nou planejament territorial (new territorial plan) for Formentera, and, at present, the only remaining steps are a drafting of plans and the economic resources to facilitate construction.

The Council of Formentera wishes to stress its governing team's devotion to the subject of education and its continued willingness to collaborate with the Govern in order to make the new Sant Ferran school a reality as soon as possible.