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A tertiary institution or a detention centre?
Dear Editor,
Please permit us to highlight our concern as students at the Guyana School of Agriculture based upon a series of mistreatment that has been going on since the new school year started.
Students are being called to the Director of Administration, Dr. Dexter Allen’s office, to be told that they are being seen too often talking to specific females more than once. However, although we accept that the school has certain rules and regulations governing students’ conduct regarding gender, it is really discriminating to us as students where we are being told who we should associate with and who not to associate with.
In one instance, a student was called to the office and asked if he knows what he was called for. Upon responding in the negative, he was told that he was disrespectful and asked to determine his punishment; if he wanted to go to the livestock farm for two weeks or go to Winkle (New Amsterdam place of residence) or weed some bushes at the school’s crop museum.
This was because he was seen talking to a female more than once. He was also asked to state the relationship between him and the female student in question.
In another case, another male student was summoned to the said office for a similar matter after he was seen talking to a female student on several occasions. He was told that there are photographs to show that he and the said female student were seen more than once or too often together.
My point here is that regarding the school’s code of conduct for students, we should not be victimized or singled out because of us being seen with one individual more than once unless we are been caught in a compromising position that is contrary to the code of conduct that has been given to us.
We would like the Director of Administration to know that there is a Ministry of Social Cohesion and it is our right to communicate with persons of any gender as often as we wish provided that, we were not in any compromising position.
We would like our voices to be heard since we are being treated like young kids. We are at a tertiary educational institution and not in a juvenile prison or something of the sort.
We would also like for the Ministry of Agriculture to look into this matter as we are being targeted as student where some of us are being told by the Director of Administration that “people like us don’t graduate” because we are seen talking to one person more than once.
In one instance where the Director of Administration was addressing a group of students from the Certificate in Agriculture Year 2, during the Research Conference held at the school’s plant science building, he paused because a student was scratching her head.
He told her that he will wait until she had finished scratching her head. He then apologised to that student after she stood up to him concerning the issue.
We would like to know whether the Ministry of Agriculture is running a military base or an institution of higher learning. There are many issues faced by students that this administration failed to rectify yet they find time to victimize students.
There are instances where students were required to visit the hospital and the said Director of Administration failed to take them to the hospital but rather told them to go into their bed, that they would feel better. However, there was an instance where a student had to be rushed to the hospital for urgent medical attention.
There was one incident where a student was stung by bees. She had her entire face swollen. She did not get to go to the hospital. Eventually, her grandmother had to come to the school to take her to the hospital.
Justin Rodrigues
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