Sat Ma­haraj

Dr Er­ic Williams in his po­lit­i­cal cam­paign of 1956 de­scribed all Hin­du schools as "cow sheds." To­day these "cow sheds" are pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion to the chil­dren of our na­tion. It seems, how­ev­er, that the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) would like our pre-schools, pri­ma­ry schools and sec­ondary schools to re­main "cow sheds." Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh, MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West, in a re­cent speech ac­cused the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment of em­ploy­ing a racist pol­i­cy in its school build­ing and re­pair pro­gramme. Re­fer­ring to the bud­get in­clu­sion of a num­ber of ne­glect­ed Hin­du schools, she al­lud­ed to a racist pol­i­cy by the PP's school build­ing and re­pair pro­gramme. Un­der Hazel Man­ning, non-elect­ed Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and wife of Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, the Rousil­lac Hin­du School was de­stroyed by fire six years ago due to an elec­tri­cal fault.

The min­is­ter was on spot to re­as­sure par­ents that the school would be re­built. How­ev­er, to date no work has been done and par­ents, chil­dren and teach­ers con­tin­ue to suf­fer. Three years ago, the Tul­sa Trace Hin­du School (Pe­nal) col­lapsed when EF­CL con­trac­tors were ef­fect­ing re­pairs. To this day the school is housed in a tem­ple in the dis­trict. Two hun­dred plus chil­dren are still de­nied prop­er school fa­cil­i­ties but in­stead meet with im­ages of their Gods every morn­ing. A three-acre par­cel of land was made avail­able for the mov­ing and re­build­ing of the Munroe Road Hin­du School eight years ago. We will be grate­ful to com­plete this promise to the Munroe Road/Be­ju­cal com­mu­ni­ty. We in­vite the par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Jack Warn­er, to in­ter­vene in the in­ter­est of his con­stituents, since nei­ther Hazel Man­ning nor her suc­ces­sor, Es­ther Le Gen­dre, seemed to care for the chil­dren of an­ti-PNM vot­ers.

The Re­form Hin­du School and three acres of land were made avail­able for the mov­ing and re­build­ing of the Re­form Hin­du School eight years ago. We will be grate­ful to com­plete this promise to the Re­form com­mu­ni­ty and will con­tin­ue to re­mind new Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh. Eight years ago, an au­di­to­ri­um was ap­proved for one of the high­est per­form­ing col­leges in T&T, the Lak­sh­mi Girls Hin­du Col­lege. Hazel Man­ning re­fused to give the fi­nal ap­proval and to date 850 girls are with­out an au­di­to­ri­um. This is a high-per­form­ing girls col­lege on the east-west cor­ri­dor with­out a play fa­cil­i­ty or an au­di­to­ri­um.

Sev­en years ago, Phase II con­struc­tion was ap­proved at the Vish­nu Boys Hin­du Col­lege. To date this col­lege still re­mains with­out sci­ence labs and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties be­cause of the PNM ve­to. We have a com­pre­hen­sive list of schools that have been con­demned to re­main "cow sheds" un­der Hazel Man­ning and Es­ther Le Gen­dre. But we would like to re­fer to an ap­proved $50 mil­lion In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) grant for the con­struc­tion of the Shi­va Boys and Par­vati Girls Hin­du Col­lege in Pe­nal. Dur­ing Mrs Man­ning's tenure as Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, we are in­formed that this grant was re­ceived and used for oth­er pur- pos­es and oth­er schools, while we re­mained con­demned by the PNM to teach our chil­dren in "mod­ern-day cow sheds."

On June 13, 2000, the IDB wrote the pro­gramme co-or­di­na­tor of the Semp of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion: "We have re­ceived your let­ter dat­ed May 24th 2000, trans­mit­ting a pro­pos­al for:

"(a) The re­build­ing of the Ves­signy Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School in lieu of the La Brea Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary; and

"(b) The in­clu­sion of two small de­nom­i­na­tion­al sec­on­daries in the Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Mod­erni­sa­tion Pro­gramme.

"The bank has re­viewed your doc­u­ment and the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion giv­en for this pro­pos­al, and is pleased to ad­vise that there is no ob­jec­tion to the pro­pos­al in gen­er­al, since both these ini­tia­tives are con­sis­tent with the over­all ob­jec­tive of the Semp. In par­tic­u­lar the bank has no ob­jec­tion to:

"1. The in­clu­sion of Ves­signy Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary in lieu of the La Brea Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary since it in­creas­es the num­ber of places in the same catch­ment area; and

"2. The in­clu­sion of two de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha since it fa­cil­i­tates the deshift­ing and con­ver­sion of the Pe­nal Ju­nior Sec­ondary School and en­cour­ages the par­tic­i­pa­tion of de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards."

This was signed by Bri­an Mc Nish, se­nior spe­cial­ist, IDB. We are ask­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion to trace the re­ceipt and dis­pos­al of this $50 mil­lion IDB grant that should have been spent to im­prove the "Hin­du cow sheds." We were not in agree­ment with some of the terms of the pro­pos­al for the Ear­ly Child­hood Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tres. We have asked that the man­age­ment struc­ture be the same for de­nom­i­na­tion­al pri­ma­ry schools, but the last ad­min­is­tra­tion re­fused. We re­quest­ed that the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion re­vis­it the pro­pos­als, tak­ing in­to ac­count our re­quest.

Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh is ac­cus­ing oth­ers of race, while her par­ty, the PNM, is ar­tic­u­lat­ing a racist agen­da.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha