Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
NOC Task Force in the works – Junior Education Minister
Over the years the New Opportunity Corps has been an area of difficulty for Guyana. For years, reports of abuse have come out of the institute and calls for serious reforms were made over and over again.
Minister within the Ministry of Education Nicolette Henry displays the report on the 2012 unrest at the New Opportunity Corps
Now, a task force is apparently being established to deal with the issues arising out of NOC, according to Minister within the Ministry of Education, Nicolette Henry. She said that a recent visit to the institution showed the need for strategic work to be implemented.
“I spent the entire Thursday last week at the New Opportunity Corps and I had the opportunity to look, firsthand, at what currently occurs there. I would agree that there is some work to be done, but it needs to be done in a strategic manner,” Henry said.
She added that a task force will be put in place “to address some issues that currently exist”. She said, too, that the task force will identify areas that need improvement, and ensure that these improvements are done.
“I do not want to get into the specifics until such time that the task force would have identified those areas which I will make available. This will be dealt with separately as an issue,” the Minister said.
Meanwhile, Henry said that she was in receipt of the report focusing on the 2012 mass breakout at the institution. She explained that after visiting NOC last week she thought that she needed to see what the report held.
“I have had the opportunity to have a look at the report. I have not reviewed it to the extent that I want to elaborate on those recommendations coming out of this. But I can tell you that from where I sit, we will be having some follow up almost immediately to address what was not addressed.
“I can tell you that any other institution that has had its fair share of problems, there are opportunities for improvement and we intend to address those very speedily,” Henry said.
Additionally, she said, there are broad areas that the new Ministry will be focusing on. These include education, skills training, and the way the children are disciplined. She added that the structures and procedures of the institution needed to be reviewed.
Henry said that the Ministry will have a multi-sectoral approach. “We intend to work in partnership to ensure that we have the best possible outcome. I rather suspect that all the agencies involved in the operations of the NOC would have, at some point in the near future, come together and have a discussion on how we move forward.”
In 2012, a number of youngsters from NOC at Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast, escaped from the institution and stormed through several communities. At the time, the children, ranging from ages 14 to 16, were armed with cutlasses and other weapons. They destroyed parts of the facilities. They subsequently claimed that they were being abused by staffers and had finally reached a breaking point.
A Commission of Inquiry into the matter was later established and though the report was completed for quite some time, its contents are yet to be made public.
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