Education Minister exposes AFC leader’s false claims about Toka students

…as Nigel Hughes under fire for falsely saying children have no school, being taught under cashew tree

Alliance For Change (AFC) leader Nigel Hughes, has come under fire for claiming on social media that the students of a hinterland school were without a school building – a claim that was quickly debunked by members of the public and Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand.

The school in question, Toka Primary in North Rupununi, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) currently has a fully equipped building, complete with satellite dishes. Despite this, Hughes shared a photo of the students being taught in the outdoors, falsely claiming that they were without a building.
At first Hughes claimed that “the primary school children from Toka have no school building so they are being taught outdoors under the Cashew tree”, together with pictures of the students learning in the outdoors. He subsequently changed his caption to “nursery school children.”
However, a number of social media users uploaded pictures showing that there is indeed a Toka Primary School. Further pictures were uploaded, showing that there are both primary and nursery schools in the community.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Manickchand issued a stinging rebuke to Hughes, noting in a social media post that “People know what’s up! If you have to lie to get votes then you clearly don’t have a plan to make people’s lives better.”
It would not be the first time Hughes has landed in hot water over his utterances concerning the education sector. Last month, Hughes made a social media post about students in Phillipai, Upper Mazaruni, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) using pit latrines.

Senior figures within the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) swiftly condemned Hughes, with Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo criticising the AFC leader for his narrow vision and hypocrisy.
“His focus is on pit latrines; he didn’t discover the new school at Kwebana or the one at Hosororo costing $2B, which is more than the entire capital budget for four regions for all the sectors in a single year by APNU. Didn’t discover that. He discovered a pit latrine in a school,” Jagdeo had said.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC., speaking during his programme “Issues in the News”, had contended that Hughes “for the first time apparently, he is in the interior and is discovering these things.”
“This gentleman goes into the Upper Mazaruni, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he discovers the living condition in those communities, he has never seen this before. You see, he grew up in a privileged household…for the first time apparently, he is seeing pit latrine and he is seeing Amerindians using pit latrine. He has never, perhaps, used a pit latrine. He doesn’t understand that the entire Guyana, other than a privileged few like himself, were using pit latrine just recently,” the attorney general said.
Nandlall had also questioned whether the AFC, which was in power alongside A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) from 2015 to 2020, never saw the need to upgrade the pit latrines into proper washroom facilities.
“I am not saying that we should continue using pit latrine. The use of pit latrine in 2024 by schools or by anybody is a deplorable thing and we have to change that. And we are working every day to change that. But this gentleman believes with the wave of a magical wand, pit latrine can be converted into a flush toilet,” Nandlall said.
“2015 to 2020, his party was in government, didn’t they know that it had pit latrine in Mazaruni? Didn’t they know that it had pit latrine in the Amerindian communities? Why they didn’t fix it?” he further questioned.
At the time, Manickchand had also addressed the media on the matter, revealing that a contract had already been awarded for some time now to have a modern lavatory facility developed at the Phillipai Primary School. She had also revealed that Phillipai Primary does, in fact, have a block of flush toilets. (G3)