The Ministry of Education Technological and Vocational Training (METVT) has apologised for its role in allowing first form students at five secondary schools to fill out a survey which was said to contain inappropriate and invasive questions.
In a statement, following a meeting with secondary school principals, chief education officer, Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw said her ministry accepts responsibility for what transpired.
“The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training unreservedly accepts that in the final analysis, it must take responsibility for the unfortunate exposure of some of our secondary schoolchildren to questions that offended them, their parents and other stakeholders in our education system.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Inter-American Development Bank, which administered the survey, has already apologized for its failure to honour a prior commitment to the ministry to remove the offending questions before placing them before the children. The ministry now tenders its own apology,” she stated.
Archer-Bradshaw admits that her ministry dropped the ball in vetting the final survey and “the ministry now assures all stakeholders that the offensive scripts will be destroyed and there will be no further use of the survey without or explicit and complete scrutiny.”