Building schools for the future

Have you seen the billboards depicting St Benedict's College? I'm sure you agree with me it looks stunning. But in reality it is much more than that. It is not the run-of-the-mill secondary school but a state of the art college where only the best material and systems were used. St Benedict College is easily the most modern and well-equipped school on the island.

St Benedict's College is modern, coloured in unusual pastels and furnished with unexpected coloured desks and chairs. It boasts 150 airy and spacious rooms, out of which 42 are classrooms, 35 resource rooms, nine science labs, eight technology labs, eight computer labs, two rooms for business studies and graphical communications rooms. These are innovative enough for the student who needs to be kept abreast with modern standards. Together with these rooms, one can also find well-equipped guidance and counselling, art, PSD, drama, music and audio-visual rooms, besides rooms used for administration purposes, a number of store rooms and even a clinic. All rooms, toilets and recreational areas were envisaged keeping students with special needs in mind. In fact, the school includes two lifts and full accessibility throughout the school.

And what about sport? The college boasts a seven-a-side synthetic turf football pitch surrounded by a state of the art synthetic athletics track 200 metres long with six lanes and, shortly, the school will be able to use the facilities of the new regional sport centre which will be built next door.

While being ultra modern, the college is environment friendly. Different water distribution systems are used. First class potable water as supplied by the Water Services Corporation is used for human consumption. Another system stores second class water collected from the college roofs. This is utilised for domestic use like washing of floors and toilet flushing. Another system makes use of water stored in underground reservoirs collected from outside recreational areas and grounds; this is then used for irrigation purposes. In total, the rainwater catchment's capacity is 2.5 million litres, enough to see the water requirements of the college throughout the year.

Even electricity usage has been designed using the latest high efficiency lighting technology (T5 technology). Moreover, the electrical distribution system has all the protection required for students and staff. Latest technology is also used for computer networking, a wireless system allows use of computers anywhere in the building and having access to the local network and internet without worrying about network cables and wires.

The Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools (FTS) has launched its first ambitious environmental protection programme in this college. The solar panels installed there convert the rays of the sun directly into electrical power, producing approximately 10 per cent of the annual electrical power requirements of the college. Moreover, the FTS is also in the process of investigating the best engineering solution and feasibility for the installation of a wind generation system envisaged to be of a higher output and even more cost effective. These technologies will ultimately serve as educational tools for the students of St Benedict College for learning the science behind them and as an exposure to the environmental protection requirement that our planet urgently needs.

One cannot appreciate the quality of this college unless one sees with one's own eyes and, therefore, everyone is invited to visit the school on Sunday during the Open Day. We are sure you will be delighted to see that the government is not only making an excellent investment but is also doing so efficiently, to specification and on time.

Mr Zammit is the architect in charge of the project.