There have been in the past decade numerous fires and deaths of hinterland students including three boys from the Aishalton Secondary School or that of a girl who drowned in a pit latrine at Santa Rosa Primary along with several fires at schools since 2020. At some point one has to ask if this is just a series of tragic but random events or whether the individual put in charge of that ministry for eight of the past 13 years has failed. This is aside from the continuingly dismal pass rates at primary and secondary school exams including seven out of ten failing Mathematics CSEC and a secondary school dropout rate of 50% – among the highest in the region.
Minister Manickchand’s response to questions posed by this newspaper related to the 2022 UNICEF report on the nation’s 24 dormitories – that her own ministry commissioned – was that “All relevant agencies were given a copy of the report. It was shared with the relevant agencies for the recommendations to be implemented.”
One wonders if she read the report well. If she had would not have alarm bells gone off that this was a matter of fierce urgency? In its physical assessment of the dormitories the report could not be clearer: “the “buildings have no central fire alarm/warning/management system. Some buildings have fire extinguishers in poor condition and absence of signage and inadequate placement.”
Would that not be a matter requiring her to take charge? To follow through with all the recommendations as so precisely outlined in the report? It was not as if the ministry had to devise a plan. It was handed a blueprint on what to do and hers and the other agencies essentially ignored it.
But for the minister to claim as she insinuates that it was not the responsibility of her ministry belies her own long embrace of the dormitory system.
For example in her budget speech of 2012 she declared “Now, in addition to the schools we boast of 22 dormitories across this country where more than 2,000 children are accessing an education when, before now, they would have been without access to that education.”
Importantly the minister conceded, “I would be the first to say that we have problems in the dorms.” And significantly she accepted that, “We are prepared to address those problems.”
In 2014 Minister Manickchand boasted, “Over the last five years alone, we have created 400 new places for students in dormitories and that is allowing 400 new students every single year to access an education that they would not have been able to access before.”
Her own Ministry of Education Strategic Plan 2021-2025 mentions the word “dormitories” a total of 40 times (fire safety gets zero mentions). Among the plans are “Improving living in dormitory facilities by reviewing and restructuring the piloted dormitory psycho-social pro-gramme and ensuring compliance of quality health and sanitary standards at dormitory facilities
3.2.1.1 Conduct needs assessment of dormitories Welfare Unit
3.2.1.2 Design context-specific dormitory programmes for each dormitory school
3.2.1.3 Facilitate the distribution of health, sanitary and hygiene resources to dormitory schools
3.2.1.4 Train teachers, parents, students and key agencies about their role and responsibilities in accordance with dormitory standards
3.2.1.5 Monitor dormitories to determine com-pliance with health and sanitary Standards”.
Again in a 2021 MoE press release the minister stated that also under the ministry’s allocation, “is money for the completion of dormitories at the Kato and the Linden Technical Institute.” Did those include provisions and designs prioritising safety in case of fire?
Finally in her Budget Speech of 2023, she told the nation there would also be the extension of the two dorms in Region Eight, the building of a school at Karasabai, in Region Nine.”
Perhaps of even greater significance as it relates to the Mahdia deaths was her response in 2012 to demands from then Opposition Leader David Granger for a probe into the running of hinterland dormitories. This came in the wake of numerous complaints by parents. Mr Granger said that parents from Ituni had staged a protest over the poor conditions at the Kwakwani and Linden Foundation Secondary Schools’ hostels. “The parents have claimed that their children were victims of physical violence and sexual abuse. A teenager, in one case, returned pregnant to her home community.”
He added, “The deaths of several students, which have not been satisfactorily explained or investigated, have been most distressing. It was recalled that three pre-teen girls perished in a fire which destroyed the female dormitory of the Waramadong Secondary School in September 2008. “The male dormitory and a library of the Bartica Secondary School were destroyed by fire in December 2007.”
Mr Granger also recounted instances where a 13-year-old student of the Charity Secondary School was found hanging in the washroom of the school’s dormitory in an ‘apparent suicide’ and a 15-year-old girl of Saint Ignatius Secondary School was found hanging from a Juniper tree in September.
He recalled that in November 2011, the decomposing bodies of three students from the Aishalton Secondary School, were dug out from an abandoned mining pit, one week after they were reported missing.
Minister Manickchand’s response at that time was not to say this was a matter for the region or another ministry. “After reviewing the statement by Mr Granger, she told Stabroek News that the Chief Education Officer, leading a team of officials from the education ministry, is presently at the St. Ignatius dorm school in Region 9 to deliver more materials to students and to examine ways in which they can better the delivery of education. She further stated that this exercise is being conducted one week after the Chief Education Officer visited the Santa Rosa Secondary School in Region 1 for a similar exercise. Also, she revealed that plans are underway to visit the dorm school at Paramakatoi next week.”
Eleven years on from her first taking office what exactly has she done to improve conditions in the dormitories? It seems nothing as her commissioned UNICEF report detailed.
You cannot boast about, and take credit for, all the students you have cooped up in dorms without accepting responsibility when things go wrong.
But Minister Manickchand is a politician at heart. She has little experience in managing a complex organisation such as her ministry. She is an attorney at law. This lack of experience goes for most of the PPP/C cabinet despite their tendency to micro-manage when it suits them. For example, what did the self-appointed Oil Tsar know about the oil industry a few years ago? And just to be fair, what did Minister Trotman know when he was hustled to sign the revised PSA? It’s been amateur time all around.
But back to Mahdia. What was glaringly absent from the reaction of a government engaged in public lachrymosity, was contrition, an admission of ultimate responsibility for the deaths of these students and an apology to their parents.
After all, they entrusted their children to the care of the state.
This minister and others have failed.
Failed to protect these children and now are failing to acknowledge their multitude of failures.