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Princeville residents threaten unrest if demands unmet
Even as more protest action is being planned over the absence of teachers at the Princeville Primary School in region 8, the Regional Executive Officer (REO) has lashed out at the education committee of the Regional Democratic Council, saying the committee has only been complaining and not offering viable solutions to the region’s issues.
The Princeville Primary School
REO Ronald Harsawack further said in a letter that steps had been taken to address the issue, but all had failed for one reason or the other.
According to reports, the primary school had been severely understaffed for about five years with just one teacher, Sherlock Ruffeno, servicing eight classes from the nursery to the primary level. Last week, protests begun over the school’s situation, and parents, guardians and students turned out to vent their frustration. Amongst these protestors were members of the education committee who maintained that something needed to be done immediately.
Harsawack has since said that the participation of committee members in the protest was a pretense.
“The councilors have miserably failed he said people they pretend to champion the cause of,” Harsawack accused in his letter. He also wrote, “A perusal of the minutes of the Regional Democratic meetings would show that very little or no solutions are posited to the administration for issues affecting the region. These issues are only ventilated in the press; the administration has never received a sound plan, proposal or solution to the issues that confront the residents of Region 8.”
In his letter, Harsawack defended the administration and noted that the region’s location provided a difficulty in attracting teachers, particularly qualified, willing ones. He said residents had been asked to provide names in 2013 and 2014 of possible candidates for temporary teaching posts. He said the residents had also been asked to provide possible candidates as community support officers (CSOs). However, neither the village nor the village council had ever made any submissions, he claimed.
Furthermore, he said the school had “its fair share of movement of teachers”.
In his letter, Harsawack noted some appointments, transfers, and dismissals. In one case, he said a teacher applied for a transfer from the Micobie Primary School to the Princeville Primary School, but the transfer was not recommended by the Department of Education, as Micobie would have become understaffed by this move.
“This chronicle of events has shown that the regional administration and the Department of Education were assiduously dealing with the situation, given the many limitations that existed. The failure of the Regional Education Committee to offer its assistance and support on these initiatives aided in making the process more arduous,” Harsawack emphasized.
However, Wayne Robinson, a member of the Education Committee, said that the committee had indeed been offering solutions, but they all had been rejected. In a telephone interview, Robinson explained that a village meeting was recently held and the matter was once more raised as a matter of concern.
He maintained that the Education Committee had offered a number of solutions that had all been ignored.
“I believe that these people have no interest in this matter,” he adamantly said.
Robinson said the Deputy Toshao of the community sent a request for more teachers to be sent to the school. Further, he said a report was made to the Regional Education Department every single month for the past five years.
Meanwhile, the situation remains the same at the school. Robinson said to date nothing has been done, but now the education committee members were being barred access to the school. Robinson alleged a directive was passed down by the deputy REO to disallow the committee members from entering the school. Since then, he said, attempts had been made to enter the school, all of which were unsuccessful.
Robinson opined that the move was an attempt to stop persons from truly becoming aware of the situation.
When contacted, Education Minister Priya Manickchand said she only became aware of the situation just over a week ago and added that interior schools were run by the region. Ruffeno maintained that his problem had been ongoing for years.
Robinson said parents and other stakeholders are meeting today to discuss a way forward and to determine when further protests will continue.
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