ITC nears completion |23 May 2005

Led by Minister for Education and Youth Danny Faure, the education staff took a guided tour of the ITC's new Providence site, which is hoped to provided training for around 600 students per year.

Construction on the R18.2 million project began in February 2003.
The new centre, which will take the ITC from its current home at the Polytechnic, has been funded by the Arab Bank for African Development (BADEA) and the government.

With the BADEA loan covering 75 percent of the cost of construction, the bank ruled that the tender for construction should be made internationally.

The winning bid was put in by the China Jiangsu International company.
Ms Lisuyuan of China Jiangsu said that the 30 workers on the project will have all of the major work completed next month and Education Department director for project planning and implementation Yves Choppy gave his backing to a mid July finish.

Mr Choppy said that the education heads had made the visit to "review progress and plan for moving in."

The new ITC will feature ten workshops, eight classrooms and seven combination classroom/workshops, which will allow the centre to up current student numbers from less than 350 to roughly 600.

Mr Choppy said that a special bus service will be provided to bring students to the new ITC.