Following a series of fires that have plagued the country’s education system, destroying several secondary learning institutions and dormitories over the past year, the Richard Ishmael Secondary School had a scary situation averted on Wednesday, after fire concerns were raised when exposed wires within the school building began to spark.
At around 15:35h on Thursday, fire concerns were raised at that learning institution, located on Woolford Avenue in Georgetown, due to damaged exposed wires which run through pipes in one of the classrooms within the school building.
Speaking with this publication, a female employee of the school explained that concerns has previously been raised with the school’s head teacher a few weeks ago regarding the exposed wires, but nothing was done. She also related that no one was injured or affected by this incident.
As a result of the fire, the Education Ministry has expended billions on the reconstruction of these learning institutions. In August 2022, a contract totalling $566.9 million was awarded to KARES Construction for the rebuilding of the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School, which was destroyed by fire in June 2021.
On January 12, 2023, the Christ Church Secondary School, located at Camp and Middle Streets, Georgetown, was gutted by a fire which was determined to be arson. As a result of that blaze, 500 students were displaced and are currently continuing their education as normal at the Cyril Potter College of Education at Turkeyen on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD).
In June, months after the devastating fire that destroyed much of the building, the Education Ministry signed seven contracts amounting to over $668 million to rebuild the school, which is expected to be completed by January 2024.
On May 21, the most devastating fire to have been recorded in Guyana ripped through the female dormitory of the Mahdia Secondary School in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), leaving 19 female students between the ages of 12 and 17 dead, as well as a five-year-old boy.
That fire, unlike others, was allegedly set by a 15-year-old female student.
In June 2022, scores of teachers and students escaped injury after a fire engulfed and gutted the St George’s High School on North Road in Georgetown. Contracts to the tune of $253.8 million were signed last month for the its reconstruction.
In September 2021, the North West Secondary School was gutted by fire, which the GPF probe revealed was as a resulted of an act of arson.
