The new Orihuela Infant/Junior School Number 20 will open it’s doors in time for the next academic year, 2023-2024, in temporary accommodation, following the awards by the Ministry of Education of a contract for the assembly, rental and disassembly of the prefabricated classrooms to Alquileres Barceló Sáez SL.
The cost of the award is 1.2 million euros with a completion period of two months, meaning that work can now get underway prior to the summer so that it is ready in September.
We are assured that the school is a temporary structure which will operate for at least three years on the municipal plot that is currently used as a parking area for the La Zenia Boulevard shopping centre. It will remain there until the construction of the new school is completed on another plot which is yet to be allocated by the City Council.
The rental contract for the prefabricated buildings has a duration of 36 months with the possibility of extending them for 12 more.
The decision to start the new school year in provisional classrooms is due, according to the Ministry, to the overwhelming need for school places in Orihuela Costa that are necessary because of the sudden increase in the school age population since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
The new school will cater for both infants and juniors with an eventual capacity of 450 students at a ratio of 25 students per classroom. There will be a total of 18 classrooms (six for Infants 3-5 years old and 12 for Primary), with all the necessary areas and services. Initially, however, as the prefabricated classrooms can each only accommodate 20 students, the capacity will be just 360 so that the teachers and students can work and learn in more comfortable conditions.
The CEIP Number 20 will allow numbers of children attending the other two schools on the coast to be reduced, the CEIP Los Dolses and the CEIP Playas de Orihuela.
