While highlighting a staff shortage, personnel at all 24 dormitories across Guyana pointed out during a UNICEF study last year that students at the facilities needed health and behavioural counselling.
The failure by the government to act on the findings has taken on greater importance following the May 21 fire at the Mahdia Secondary School girls dorm that claimed 20 lives.
Seventy-five per cent of the personnel canvassed at the dorms advocated that more attention was required for girls, the UNICEF report said. A girl at the Mahdia dorm has since been charged with 19 murders following the fire.