WHY ARE THESE ISSUES BEING IGNORED?

Sep 12, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Whether it is two, twenty or thirty, it is not feasible to have a nursery school with any of those numbers of students. You cannot have a school with two students, or with twenty students or even with thirty students.
A nursery school has to have at least two levels with at least two classes per level. With fifteen students on average per class, at the minimum there should be no less than sixty students before a school can be properly constituted.
To have a school population of twenty students will mean that only one teacher can be gainfully employed. It makes no sense to have one teacher and one headmistress as part of the organizational chart of any school.
These are the practicalities of having schools in areas where the student population is small. It would in fact in such instances make better sense for the students to go to another school since they would be part of a large student environment and more students.  If, however, the other school is too far away, then alternative measures would have to be put in place.
On the issue of alternatives, the Ministry of Education must be congratulated for the prompt action they took to deal with the reassignment of children who were affected by the destruction of the school at Wismar by fire, during the unrest in Linden last month.
After the protests ended, there was a commitment by residents to rebuild the school with their own resources. This was a fantastic gesture by the community.  In fact, at the end of the protests, there was a massive cleaning-up of the debris by a group of residents.
By now one would have expected that the work of rebuilding the school would have progressed significantly. But there have been no reports in the media about the progress of this initiative by the people to rebuild the school with their own resources. So just how far have the works gone and when is the school expected to be completed? How are funds being raised, and if so, how much has been raised overseas?
The Ministry of Education should allow the community to rebuild the school with their own resources. These are initiatives that should be encouraged. While the Ministry did indicate that it was their responsibility to rebuild the school, it would be good to encourage the community in their efforts to rebuild the school and perhaps to set the sort of example of community spirit that can be imitated throughout the country.
APNU should make a statement on this issue. Some of its members have been making all kinds of statements, but strangely on certain issues, no statements have been forthcoming and the media seem not too concerned with finding out what is the state of play on a number of issues.
One of the strangest comments recently from persons within APNU was about wanting a meeting with the Commission of Inquiry. It seems that those who want this meeting do not appreciate just what they signed on to.
A Commission of Inquiry (COI) is a not a committee. It is a fact-finding body that bases its conclusions on evidence. The work of an inquiry involves formal hearings. There is therefore no place for any sort of meeting between anybody and the commission. Those who have something to say have to do so in the hearings.
The COI has judicial powers, including the power to sanction witnesses who are found lying. As such the work of the COI is serious business, and therefore the idea of a meeting between persons and the Commission seems misplaced.
Interestingly, no attempt has been made by the media to advise those wanting a meeting that this would not be appropriate and that they should hold what they have to say for the hearings.
The media has also been strangely silent as to why there were delays in polling for the positions on the Executive of the PNCR and why the elections went so late into the night. Why was there no post – Congress rally at the Square of the Revolution as is the norm? And what has been the reaction to reports that by the end of the voting only a small fraction of the total registered voting delegates were present.
This raises an important issue as to how representative can it be said about some, not all, of those elected, especially those elected by only a small fraction of the total registered voters. Or was it that there was no controversy? Could it be that there was a high voter turnout of delegates right through the process at the Congress? Why is the media so disinterested in these issues?
When the issue of conflict of interest of the wife of the Minister of Finance was raised there were many voices railing against the confirmation of the young lady? But now that a conflict of interest charge has also been raised in respect to the AFC’s position on the award of the specialty hospital, some of the very vocal watchdog bodies seem to have gone silent. How come?
If the notion is accepted that one can speak professionally and at the same time politically on an issue without being in a conflict of interest, why then can’t a similar claim be made in respect to conflict of interest in the audit office?
And why the indifference and silence by the media? What is good for the goose must be good for the gander.

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