On No­vem­ber 20, just a few days away, much of the world will ob­serve World Chil­dren’s Day. The day marks the an­niver­sary of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly’s adop­tion of the De­c­la­ra­tion of the Rights of the Child. Pri­ma­ry schools are now fo­cused on teach­ing chil­dren about the Con­ven­tion and help­ing them un­der­stand their fun­da­men­tal rights, in­clud­ing the rights to life, a name, a lov­ing home and health care.

This year’s theme is fit­ting: “My Day. My Rights. My Fu­ture.” The right that con­cerns me most at this time is the right to an ed­u­ca­tion. This right is recog­nised not on­ly by the Unit­ed Na­tions but al­so in our do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion. Sec­tion 76 of the Ed­u­ca­tion Act makes school at­ten­dance com­pul­so­ry for chil­dren be­tween the ages of five and 16. Right­ful­ly so.

Ed­u­ca­tion gives peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn, de­vel­op skills and achieve their goals. Sec­tion 77 of the Act sets out par­ents’ du­ty to en­sure that chil­dren of com­pul­so­ry school age re­ceive a prop­er ed­u­ca­tion. The du­ty al­so ex­tends to the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, who must en­sure that prop­er fa­cil­i­ties or oth­er means are avail­able to de­liv­er that ed­u­ca­tion.

On Oc­to­ber 16, al­most four weeks ago, a dev­as­tat­ing fire struck Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School in Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do. It was a dif­fi­cult blow for many fam­i­lies, my­self in­clud­ed. Par­ents were left wor­ried, con­cerned, con­fused and trau­ma­tised. I have long since run out of ad­jec­tives to de­scribe our state of mind. This was es­pe­cial­ly true for the par­ents of Stan­dard Five stu­dents. My son and his class­mates will sit the 2027 SEA ex­am­i­na­tion. Just a week be­fore the fire, their par­ents had met to dis­cuss the up­com­ing ex­am­i­na­tion and were re­mind­ed that the count­down had be­gun.

When our school was de­stroyed, the SEA date was not ad­just­ed, teach­ing at oth­er schools con­tin­ued, and no spe­cial pro­vi­sions were made for our chil­dren. In­stead, we were forced to watch the days pass quick­ly, each one rep­re­sent­ing a crit­i­cal day of class­es lost. Our chil­dren will re­ceive no spe­cial al­lowance for the dis­rup­tion to their ed­u­ca­tion. In­stead, they will have to com­pete on equal foot­ing in an ex­am­i­na­tion that is al­ready chal­leng­ing.

A group of Stan­dard Five par­ents did what de­vot­ed par­ents should do: they ral­lied around the school, its hard-work­ing prin­ci­pal and teach­ers, and ded­i­cat­ed them­selves to what­ev­er need­ed to be done. The church of­fered space, and par­ents raised mon­ey and pro­vid­ed the labour to trans­form a blank space in­to a class­room. We did not com­plain. We un­der­stood the need to help our­selves and our chil­dren. The ded­i­ca­tion shown by some fa­thers and fam­i­lies was re­mark­able, and they de­serve our thanks.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s role was to pro­vide a list of re­quire­ments for ap­proval, then re­turn to in­spect and ap­prove the space. If par­ents had not tak­en the ini­tia­tive, our Stan­dard Five stu­dents would not have re­turned to school sev­er­al days ago.

Imag­ine my sur­prise, then, when I read a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle a week ago sug­gest­ing that the Min­istry was work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to find ac­com­mo­da­tion for our chil­dren, and men­tion­ing the Stan­dard Five stu­dents’ re­turn to school. Our chil­dren are be­ing sent work via What­sApp, but there is no ac­tu­al teach­ing. The ar­ti­cle con­clud­ed that teach­ers had been in­struct­ed by their union not to con­duct on­line class­es.

I would have ex­pect­ed the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to have made us more adept at con­duct­ing class­es on­line. Yet, while the union ap­pears to be rush­ing to pro­tect teach­ers who are at home on salary, a hand­ful of par­ents must now try to pro­tect the chil­dren. Sad­ly, the Min­istry seems to be sev­er­al steps be­hind in di­rect­ing that on­line class­es be­gin.

To date, there has been no meet­ing be­tween Min­istry per­son­nel and par­ents. We can on­ly as­sume that find­ing a place for our chil­dren or restor­ing our school is on the Min­istry’s agen­da. Par­ents have pledged funds for re­build­ing and have ac­cess to the labour and ma­chin­ery need­ed to de­mol­ish the dam­aged sec­tions. Yet we have been un­able to meet with the peo­ple in charge to say that we are ready to work with them. Mean­while, teach­ing days are pass­ing. Our chil­dren of com­pul­so­ry school age are sit­ting at home.

Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School is one of the top-per­form­ing Pres­by­ter­ian schools in the Vic­to­ria Dis­trict. Its suc­cess is due not on­ly to its stu­dents but al­so to the years of foun­da­tion­al work done by its teach­ing staff. With the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion ap­proach­ing, our Stan­dard Five stu­dents have suf­fered a set­back, while our Stan­dard Four stu­dents are miss­ing cru­cial teach­ing time need­ed to com­plete their syl­labus.

De­spite all this, we par­ents re­main in the dark. It would ap­pear that our chil­dren’s right to an ed­u­ca­tion is not as fun­da­men­tal as we had thought. The dam­aged fur­ni­ture and black­ened rooms re­main vis­i­ble to passers-by. What they can­not see is the un­cer­tain­ty and wor­ry that im­age has chis­elled in­to par­ents’ hearts.

We con­tin­ue to ask: Where are the peo­ple who owe a du­ty to these chil­dren? Where are the peo­ple in au­thor­i­ty? Where is the meet­ing with the stake­hold­ers? Are we doomed to sit back and watch our chil­dren con­tin­ue to suf­fer? My chil­dren, like their class­mates, have a right to an ed­u­ca­tion equal to that of every child in this coun­try. Why are their rights be­ing tram­pled while those in pow­er re­main silent?

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is Head of Cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law. She can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com.