Horrible injustices: They just go on

Jul 18, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Do you know that there is a very nasty injustice that is perpetrated on poor people in this country and for almost a decade now there hasn’t been a single voice raised in anger?
The Ministry of Education, since the Hoyte era, has laid down a blueprint for allocation to primary schools. This guideline is freely available to any citizen if he/she requests it from the Ministry.
Officials of that Ministry are quick to quote the requirements to parents who wish certain schools for their children.
Basically, three factors in the formula are of paramount importance. First is the place of residence. The technical term for this is “catchment area.” Children are assigned places based on the physical proximity to the school. One suspects that two considerations were behind this policy. It cuts out long, onerous travel. And there is a reduction in transport cost.
Secondly, if parents work in the catchment area, the children are placed there because it allows for convenience of both parties.
The kids would not have to wait long periods to be picked up and the parents would not have to be late for work. Finally, if there is a sibling or cousin already attending the school, then a place is offered.
The Ministry of Education from Hoyte’s presidency up to the time of writing has not observed its own requirements and in fact has contemptuously violated and violates its own guidelines. There are about five primary schools in Georgetown that are perceived by the public to be the most prestigious ones in the entire territory of Guyana.
An examination of these schools would reveal that the parents of a sizeable percentage of enrolled students do not live in the catchment area. Go to these schools in the mornings and you will see the type of vehicles that drop off children and who are the parents. These people do not live in Georgetown.
Armed with this knowledge in 1995, I undertook a broad study of the violation. I had great help from Ministry officials. I gave the completed research to President Cheddi Jagan.
I explained to Dr. Jagan that the poor classes were being denied their rightful lots in schools. I didn’t say to him that these schools were better.
My question was “Why were poor people’s children prevented from attending these five eminent primary schools?” In 1996, I inquired from Dr. Jagan about the status of my research. He politely told me that he gave it to Donald Ramotar to act on it. I couldn’t understand why Ramotar, when he was not a policy-maker in the Education Ministry. The next year, Dr. Jagan died and so did my research paper.
Quite a large number of PPP supporters will never understand the failings and incompetence of Cheddi Jagan. The children of the poor were being discriminated against.
This man, for over fifty years, shouted about his concern for the labouring masses. Yet when it was time to do an admirable performance for the benefit of the less fortunate, he didn’t.
Today, the Ministry of Education makes a mockery of school placements and the children of the poorer classes are the victims.
Many readers would know about the disagreement two of us at UG had with then Minister of Education, Dr. Henry Jeffrey. A woman came to me and my UG colleague, Dr. Daniel Kumar, in tears.
She lived in the same street with West Ruimveldt Primary School but was given a school, miles away. Dr. Jeffrey refused our request. We went to the press and the Ombudsman. He responded in the Stabroek News by informing us that school placement is a random process.
It was one of the most uninformed comments I ever heard about life and I waded into Dr. Jeffrey over his short-sighted perception. Here was a Minister who operated under a set of rules for the allocation of schools, but yet told the nation that school destination was a random process.
I will always remember my reply to Dr. Jeffrey on this episode because I recall penning it with emotional fury. How can you tell a crying mother that there cannot be a logical arrangement for the selection of school for her kid?
Today, the caricature can be openly observed. Go outside of St. Margaret’s, one of the nation’s high achieving primary school and look at who are the parents.
I pass that school on Camp Street everyday, and I see people who live in LBI, Ogle, Eccles, Happy Acres, Lamaha Gardens, dropping off their kids to school.
The same situation obtains at Stella Maris. Kitty children can’t get into Stella Maris which is located yards away from Kitty. Funny eh?

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