A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Thursday to mark the start of construction work on the SAT$5.8 million Vaigaga Primary School building project. 

The school building upon its completion will also have a dual purpose role as a disaster evacuation site for the community and is funded by the World Bank under its Pacific Resilience Program (PREP). 

More than 400 students from the Faleata district attend Vaigaga Primary School and are currently using family homes as their alternative classrooms until the new building is completed. 

The school facility was built 60 years ago, however, a recent assessment found the building's structure to be unsafe for children’s learning. 

Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa spoke about the history of the school, which began 63 years ago on the grounds with a simple stone house used by the clergy to teach village children. 

She said in 1984 a modernised school building was built and used by the school until it was identified as vulnerable in a risk assessment exercise that was conducted in 2019. 

“This project is an important contribution to our national efforts to build resilient infrastructure to respond to the detrimental effects of climate change,” said Fiame. “Climate change is the single most [biggest] threat to the livelihoods, resources and well-being of humanity across the globe.

“Small island countries like Samoa are more vulnerable to unprecedented impacts of climate change.” 

The school is a key resilient investment of the Samoa Pacific Resilience which is jointly executed and managed by several ministries of the Samoa government. The main objective of the World Bank-run PREP is to strengthen early warning resilient investments and financial protection of Samoa. 

Fiame said the cost of construction of the new Vaigaga Primary School building is SAT$5.8 million and education is a key sector in the government’s social development priorities in the Pathway for the Development of Samoa. 

She thanked the World Bank for their assistance through PREP in the construction of more resilient and safe school buildings for selected villages in Samoa. 

The Faleata No. 2 M.P. and Minister for Public Enterprises, Leatinuu Wayne So’ialo was instrumental in pushing to retain the World Bank funding for the school building, despite the decision of the former administration to declare it would seek funding from local sources of up to SAT$30,000. 

Vaigaga Primary School principal, Fata Gasu Sione said there are currently 475 students attending the school from the 495 enrolled earlier this year. He welcomed the groundbreaking ceremony which signaled the start of the construction project.

“We have classes held at the church building and we are using other family homes for other classes including the home of the Minister,” said Fata. “The Ministry’s [Ministry of Education and Culture] ratio is one teacher for 30 students…our Year 2 have 54 students in that class and Year 8 there are 58 students, Year 7 there are 56. 

“I acknowledge the teachers for their efforts to assist students and God for helping us.” 

A representative from Zheng Construction and the Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster signed the contract to seal the project.

Leatinuu, on behalf of the Prime Minister, as well as a representative from Zheng Construction, the World Bank and Rev. Elder Tautua Aurelio dug up the soil to officially mark the start of the construction. 

Rev. Elder Tautua from the EFKS Vaigaga church also conducted the prayer service for the event as well as entertainment from the church congregation members.