12 Jan 2011

Marshalls schools turn away students for lack of space

4:08 pm on 12 January 2011

The Marshall Islands education ministry says both the public elementary and high schools on Kwajalein Atoll have been forced to turn away students for the current school year for a lack of classrooms.

The problem has occurred despite more than 70 million US dollars in United States funding being poured into new schools and health infrastructure in the Marshall Islands.

Officials say the bottleneck holding up construction of new classrooms in Kwajalein is the lack of land leases for these schools to expand and build new facilities.

Our correspondent says the land lease problem is tied to a bigger issue of the ongoing dispute between Kwajalein landowners and the Marshall Islands and U.S. governments over long-term use by the U.S. of the Kwajalein missile testing range.