ONE of the village leaders of Paipang in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) is hoping that with the completed construction of a school in their area, children will no longer have to walk long miles while braving threats of the jungle to receive an education.
However, the school building at reference is still incomplete since being abandoned by contractors in 2017.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, Senior Councillor of Paipang, Kendell Francis, said that as such, a total of 42 children travel to the neighbouring village of Tiger Pond some seven miles away to attend the school there.

“Our main concern is based on education. Our children are encountering, on a daily basis, challenges to attend Tiger Pond Primary School which is approximately seven miles away. The children leave their locations at 6am and reach back home about 5pm. It takes them actually two hours walking,” Francis related, adding:

“Some travel on bicycle and sometimes, when they experience much difficulty, we take them on tractors and when it’s afternoon time we take them back home.”
Usually, transporting the children by tractor is rotated between Francis and another driver which is apart from the work they must do to provide a living for themselves and family.
Added to this, the senior councillor said that the journey is a very risky one as the children must travel deep in the thicket of Guyana’s jungle, where several large species of mammals and reptiles live.

“It is a dangerous journey. By the path there are jaguars and pumas and the creeks sometimes flood out. So adults go with them, especially the nursery school children, the parents walk and carry them. But sometimes the children are absent when there is no transportation,” he said.

Francis added that this has been the norm in the village for as long as he can remember.
However, he told the newspaper that the government is building a school in the community and the contractor doing the construction is also responsible for several projects in Region Nine.

Speaking about the school building to be completed in the area, he said: “The school building has been stalled since December 2016. The contractors went on Christmas holiday and they went back in January 2017, but then they left and never returned again. They already put up the foundation of the wall, they have zinc down there but they haven’t nailed it up on the roof. It’s only done half way,” he lamented.

He said, too, the contractors owe money to some persons from the village who were hired to work and to provide materials, but had received no such payment.
“We only want the school building to be completed, so it would be possible for our children to be in school more rather than walking in the morning and the afternoon time,” Francis said.

He also expressed a need for additional teachers to assist with the children, as there are only four teachers at the Tiger Pond School teaching a little less than 100 children.