Revamp and Renewal

THE BURSAR’S VIEWPOINT

During the past two years, the pandemic gave us both challenges and opportunities. While it shadowed and put a pause on many plans. It also enabled projects originally planned for ‘downtime months’ to be carried out. The first priority of the College was, as always, to continue delivering an excellent learning experience to our students. This was achieved through an effort which, across the board, was nothing short of heroic.

Network renewal

If the pandemic showed us anything, it was the importance of connectivity. At St Edward’s we had long recognised this and had planned to improve our digital networking. In terms of technology, the College had been planning to start upgrading network infrastructures, hardware etc. Covid put all that to a fast forward mode, as when College moved to hybrid and then online, we had to keep up with the needs of the learning community. This put pressure not only on the college to perform and meet expectations, but also to provide a service which gives the users enough elbow room so that the system does not collapse through over-use. This was not a minor matter both financially and in terms of human resources, both of which are limited. In a span of months, the College’s networks were re-done from scratch, all hardware such as Interactive White boards, teachers’ laptops etc were replaced. We also provided our regular LSEs with laptops to be able to cater for their students online.

Hundreds of thousands of Euros were invested in the IT infrastructure during these past two years. Of course, any investment relating to technology will not be a one-time investment. Technology needs to be continuously upgraded and enhanced to keep up with the fact pacing ‘technology world’ we are currently living in. In fact, by the beginning of scholastic year 2022/2023, we would like to upgrade the three ICT labs which are in the main building, which are used by all students in Middle and Senior school. All this was done without affecting the fees during the pandemic. Very much aware of the problems which many were facing during the pandemic, the College took a conscious decision to take the financial burden on its shoulders and not add to the parents’ financial problems.

Facelift

One of the major projects which the College is currently planning and undertaking in phases is that of keeping the historical monument that is the College in the excellent shape it deserves. This is a multi-million-euro project and, perforce, needs to be spread over years. At this point I would like to thank all those who took and are taking the initiative to raise funds for the restoration of the College. Let us make this clear: without these efforts, nothing will materialise.