-CoI uncovers

THE immense mistreatment of the education sector under the previous coalition government left the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) grappling to restore the years of “neglect.”
This is according to the findings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the deadly Mahdia dormitory fire in 2023.

The report was handed over to President Dr. Irfaan Ali, on Friday by the CoI Chairman, Major-General (Ret’d) Joe Singh, who was accompanied by fellow commissioners, Chairman of the National Toshaos’ Council (NTC) Derrick John, and Attorney-at-law Kim Kyte-Thomas.

The CoI commenced the hearing in September last in accordance with its Terms of Reference, which outlined that the commission would investigate and report on the events leading up to the dormitory fire, as well as its causes that led to the death of the 20 children.

According to the Presidential CoI, in 2015, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, the Education Minister at the time, ordered an investigation to evaluate the state of education in Guyana.

Within this context, the “Ed Caesar” report, which was a baseline analysis of Guyana’s public education system aimed to provide recommendations for broad strategic guidelines for improving public education, was used.

The CoI comprised of former Chief Education Officer (CEO), Ed Caesar; representatives of religious organisations, Ronald Austin (Jnr) and Ms. Jennifer Dewar; IT specialist, Lance Hinds and a representative of the private sector, Ramesh Persaud. They were assisted by a team of technical and administrative officials.

The Commission presented its Preliminary Report to the Minister of Education on April 28, 2017 and according the findings, the report placed high emphasis on the “deplorable state” of student dormitories and made recommendations that they should be addressed.

However, the previous administration did not take any measures to rectify the issues, Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussain, said during his testimony.

Hussain said: “Nothing was done by the Government at that time to implement the recommendations of the Report…No steps, no steps were taken into 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, up to July…The Report identified dorms. I have seen from that document, a checklist on issues raised, whether those have been fixed from 2017, and dorms was not ticked. Nothing was done. Absolutely nothing was done, which is callous.”

With the current PPP/C Government being made aware of the MOE/UNICEF consultancy report, which aimed to improve live-in dormitory facilities, immediate interventions were made.
Hussain said, “Following that Report, immediately systems began to be put in place for the implementation and the subsequent renovations to the dorms. What has to be understood is the costing of this Report is close to about three billion Guyana dollars that had to be found in order to fix all of the dorms. This was middle of 2022,” while underscoring that budget had already passed and so there was not a $3 billion lying around.

As a result, he said that it felt that the better option at that time was to gradually repair the dorms.

“I can say at this point…. I could add at this point, up to today, $882 million has been expended on dorms from 2022 to current. By the end of the year, we expect to touch a billion dollars because we are still awaiting a number of awards for these dorms…” he further stated.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The Commission suggested implementing the recommendations of the MOE/UNICEF Gender Sensitive Standards for Dormitory Schools in Guyana as much as is practically achievable.

In addition, an Inspectorate should be established to visit the retrofitted or upcoming dormitories and assess how well they adhere to the suggested Gender Sensitive Standards for dorms.

The CoI recommended that the visits ought to make it possible to examine fire suppression systems, evaluate first responder firefighting drills and capabilities, and review emergency evacuation protocols.

The statutory deadlines for fire drills at schools and dorms must also be followed, and they must be strictly enforced.

“We recommend that technically competent individuals are included in such inspectorate teams, and reports on the extent of compliance achieved are to be submitted to the relevant agencies for evaluation and follow-up action,” the CoI said while adding that the grills should be replaced with a modern security system.