When Priya Manickchand was Minister of Education, she wrote to Stabroek News to settle a question about who was responsible for children living in regional school dormitories. She said the answer was the regional administrations, governed by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. Ms Manickchand is now the minister in charge of that ministry. The complaints coming from interior dormitories therefore call for an answer from her.
In her November 2023 letter she went well beyond building repairs. She placed the hiring of dorm parents, cooks and security staff, as well as the supervision of students, within the regional administration’s responsibilities. “Dorm children therefore are under the direct care of the Regional Administration,” she wrote.
Ms Manickchand also said that questions about leaking dormitory roofs, unfinished repairs, too few dorm parents and inadequate food were questions for the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development. She argued that regional budgets provided the money for this work and that the Education Ministry could not simply spend its own allocation on a regional dormitory roof. She was forceful about where responsibility lay. The public can fairly expect the same clarity from her now that she holds the office she identified.
The need for that clarity is immediate. At the newly opened Kwebana Secondary School in Region One, parents have complained of interrupted water supplies, delayed meals, poor ventilation and too few adults to supervise children in the dormitory.
After visiting, APNU MP Sherod Duncan said parts of the compound remained unfenced and construction was continuing while students were there. He reported that some children had slept on the concrete floor because it was cooler. Duncan subsequently said more cooks and another dorm mother had been assigned. That is a response to some complaints, but parents still need to know when the problems with water, security and ventilation will be resolved. These are reported concerns.
At D.C. Caesar-Fox Secondary School in Waramadong, Region Seven, as we reported, a former staff member said students were making a bathing area with plastic sheets and cloth and washing their clothes at public landings. He described unfinished repairs to the boys’ dormitory and the absence of a dining hall. Other concerns reported from the school include unreliable water and the continued use of pit latrines by students. The regional administration should say which of these accounts it accepts, what it has found on inspection and what work has been ordered.
These complaints cannot be separated from what Guyana learned after the Mahdia dormitory fire claimed 20 young lives in 2023. An earlier review of school dormitories had identified widespread problems with staffing, resources, management and living space. In another letter Ms Manickchand said she had sent that review to the Ministers of Finance and Local Government in 2022 and that Cabinet had decided its recommendations would be implemented. Three years after Mahdia, the government should be able to show parents what has been done at each dormitory.
Ms Manickchand has made herself visible on garbage collection, cleaner public spaces and the pavements and vending arrangements near schools on Woolford Avenue. Those issues matter. Children living away from their families need her attention just as urgently. A child at an interior school has as much claim to a safe bathroom, reliable water and proper care as a child in Georgetown has to a clear pavement outside the school gate.
The minister should give a public account of conditions at Kwebana and Waramadong. She should say whether the dormitories have enough trained staff, what the inspections found and when each outstanding problem will be fixed. She should also report on the wider programme of dormitory improvements promised after Mahdia. Parents need a timetable they can judge by results, and children need to know that the adults responsible for them are paying attention.
In 2023, Ms Manickchand asked the public to understand exactly which ministry was answerable for regional dormitories.She was clear then. She should be equally clear now.
Discussion