THREE DAYS after residents forced the closure of the Mocha Arcadia Nursery School in protest of its appalling conditions, the school reopened on Wednesday following the intervention of the Department of Education, Region Four.Guyana Chronicle understands that the Regional Education Officer, Jennifer Bourne, met with the concerned parents on Tuesday. Though Bourne reportedly did not commit the Government to the construction of a new school, a promise was made to have immediate repairs executed.

When this newspaper visited the nursery school, which is located on New Settlers Street, Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara, classes were in session.
Long standing member of the school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Cathy George, said that even though parents are not satisfied with the response, they are giving the Department of Education an opportunity to execute much needed repairs on the school.
According to George, in 2013, the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic Administration had promised to budget for the construction of a new nursery school in 2015. The Mocha Arcadia Nursery School, which has been in existence for more than 30 years, “is falling to pieces,” George said.
“The building leaking, the step falling apart, they don’t have enough childlike furniture, the grass in the yard high, high, high and the sanitary block is a mess,” she posited while bemoaning the lack of a sick bay at the school.
“A time a teacher fell sick, they had to put her on the corridor to lie down because there is no sick bay in the school,” George recalled.
She added, “there is no kitchen in the school, the biscuits and juice they don’t have nowhere to store them.”
In addition to the appalling state of the school, George contended that the school is now clustered due to the growing population. “When the children finish taking snack and they take their rest, the teachers have to fan the children with a cardboard how the school is clustered.”
Since 1998, a request was made for a guard hut to be constructed, but according to George that request is still pending. “We are asking for a guard hut since 1998, and the guards have to guard on the corridor, when the rain fall all the water wetting up the guards, they have to go in the toilet and when they go in the toilet the rain still beating in on them.”
In addition to repairs, the Department of Education has reportedly committed to the construction of a guard hut.

(Svetlana Marshall)