The National Accreditation Council had denied registration of the American Health Care Institute as an accredited institution, after the body ruled that the school had not met the required standards according to the Ministry of Education.
However, the school’s principal Nandranie Kissoon challenged the decision, the ministry yesterday said in a statement, in which it also sought to distance itself from blame.
Students of the school held a protest outside its Robb Street location on Tuesday. Kissoon was accused in 2009 of defrauding students of the Inter-American Nursing School, described by the then health minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy as a bogus nursing school.
The Education Ministry yesterday said the facts of the matter would show that it “is far from being in a place where any sensible person can lay blame for the predicaments the students face,” in the light of what it said were protests outside the ministry organised by “known APNU and PNC activists” over the situation. It revealed that the National Accreditation Council, a statutory body, denied registration to the Guyana Health Care Institution as an accredited institution on the grounds that it had not met the required standards and that Kissoon was duly informed.
However, it added that the Council subsequently received a court order calling on it to show cause why the decision not to register should not be quashed. “Notably,” the ministry’s statement added, “it was Nigel Hughes, an aspirant for the post of prime minister, and chairman of the AFC, who went to the court to have Guyana Health Care Institution and Nanda Kissoon considered authentic.”
The statement added that Kissoon and her attorney went as far as to file contempt of court proceedings against the relevant body and persons, threatening to incarcerate them. However, the ministry stated that the council intends to vigorously defend itself and the ministry stood in solidarity with it.The ministry said that is saddened by the plight of the victims of the alleged scam and it urged all Guyanese and particularly young people to ensure that institutions that they seek to enter are fully recognised and registered appropriately by the relevant bodies, such as the National Accreditation Council. It also urged the students of the school not to allow themselves to be exploited by politicians who can offer nothing more than “loud and aggressive but empty promises. “Given that the Government of Guyana has repeatedly sounded warnings about this individual and her operations and given that the outfit against which the students are complaining is not duly registered, the Ministry of Education remains perplexed as [to] the reason for the protest being held outside the Ministry of Education,” it said.
“The ministry urges the opposition politicians to speak to their fellow opposition politician Mr Nigel Hughes to ensure the students get their money back,” it later added.
