There will, presumably, be an inquiry into the likely cause of the June 19 fire that effectively rendered the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School unusable that, in its own way, has added to the current crisis in our education system resulting from the advent of Covid-19 and the necessity to close schools and place the formal education of thousands of our children on an indefinite hold. Whether, whatever results from the probe, there will be a serious ‘lessons learnt’ approach to responding to its findings is uncertain. Precedent does not suggest that this is the manner in which we operate in Guyana. We tend to favour the going-through-the-motions, all-noise-and- no-action approach.
Looking ahead before we reflect on the issue of the fire and the question as to the security regime at schools that is a microcosm of the wider issue of the protection of our education infrastructure, one hopes not only that the “rebuild” undertaking given by the Education Minister has some realistic time frame attached to it and that the rebuilding exercise is reflective of lessons learnt from the tragedy. The Ministry of Education has a rather ‘iffy’ reputation for acting with alacrity on the promises that it makes.
One is inclined to think, sadly, that once the dust settles and the requisite less than ideal alternative arrangements are made for the immediate accommodation of the affected children, the ‘rebuild’ undertaking runs the risk of slipping onto the back burner of the Ministry’s priorities, given its various other priorities associated with education management at this time. Contextually, it has to be said that we are, as a nation, usually inclined to put some of the more telling tragedies behind us after we have gone through the requisite long-faced routines and wait for the next one to happen. These days, it appears to be one of our incurable deficiencies.
There are a few reasons why such a fire could have occurred and some of the candidates in this regard could be arson, some kind of electrical fault or even, perhaps, the carelessness of persons who may have been occupying the school illegally at the time. All of this, of course, is speculative though none of the proffered likely reasons can be placed beyond the realm of possibility.
What is known, as a fact, is that our schools, particularly those outside of the capital and some other major townships are subject to some of the most tenuous security arrangements that range from no security presence at all to arrangements that are intertwined with appalling laxness and corrupt practices. Whether the current administration of the Ministry of Education has, as yet been able to get its collective mind around the Augean Stables of the slipshod regime that has, for many years, attended the after –hours, weekends and holiday security arrangements for state schools by private security services is unclear. What is known is that the state has, over the years, had to ‘shell out’ millions upon millions of dollars in payments for private security services in circumstances where such services go un-rendered and where the unearned ‘payments’ to the security firms are divided amongst the various conspirators, including state-salaried ‘Checkers’ responsible for administrative oversight.
Unsurprisingly, the absurd deficiencies that attend the securing of our schools, which are well-known at the highest levels of the Ministry of Education have gone seemingly without robust official intervention and subsequent remedy, through Education Minis-ters, going back decades.
Nor are there, these days – or at least so it seems – any regulations that govern the types of events, outside the confines of teaching and learning, that can be held in school buildings. If a case can be made for the use of school buildings for some types of community events (and these should exclude gatherings of a political nature) there can, surely, be no excuse for the staging of entertainment events, some of these of the most inappropriate, even unseemly nature and which open the doors to theft, vandalism and fires and other forms of degeneration of school buildings. One might add that some of the most unseemly events of that nature occur in the most well-appointed schools in our capital and, presumably, with the imprimatur of the Ministry of Education, the immediate administrators of the schools and frequently by PTA’s which, in some instances, appear to have arrogated to themselves a level of prerogative that extends way beyond their substantive authority.
The fault lies, directly, with the authorities, the Ministry of Education, particularly, which, in the event that it is engaged on these matters will doubtless turn out manuals that speak extensively to the protocols associated with the security of school pre-mises and the purposes for which these can/ should be used. Except, of course, that, as with many other issues where effective implementation is lacking, the rules are clad in stifling layers of circulars and memoranda which can be trotted out at a moment’s notice to be used as barriers against criticism for abject failure, but which, in terms of preventing unfortunate occurrences, really count for nothing.
We may probably never know quite what caused the fire at the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School that has placed yet another challenge at the feet of an education system already weighed down with challenges. Or perhaps it may well be determined that the fire may have been caused by some electrical fault that escalated into and inferno. The real question that arises – apart from just when the children attending the school will be able to return to their own rebuilt comfort zone, is whether, in the context of the points made in this editorial, the worm can be made to turn under the control of a Ministry of Education that has, for years, appeared frighteningly leaden-footed in the application of timely and practicable solutions to serious shortcomings in the education system and which, these days, can claim with some justification that its attention is firmly fixed in the direction of what, arguably, is the biggest challenge that it has ever had to face.
