In the past few weeks - multiple reports of gross sexual misconduct by teachers have emerged in the North, Central and West of the country at the primary, secondary and now tertiary level. Today, at the UB event we asked the Minister of Education about it and he said that the reports had not reached his desk - but there are instances of professional misconduct in the teaching ranks, and a culture of covering it up:
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"But let's say for instance, somebody gets into the classroom, puts on the proverbial sheep skin on the wolf, for instance. What we do then is very important and that is where I cannot find a fault with our system. If we don't know about something then, there is not much that we can do and there are many players out there who help to cover what is going on and when I say that, I mean the schools themselves, sometimes the parents refuse to make the complaints, sometimes the school want to embarrass or they protect, sometimes the churches are involved, sometimes there is politics involved, I will tell you. And there can be no excuse or that and I want to place on the record certainly my position and our ministry's position, that that should not be tolerated. These kinds of cover-ups should never be tolerated and any person, especially those that are given the kind of sacred trust to take care of our children. This ministry does not condone that kind of behavior and those persons should be dealt with according to the law."
And while he addressed it in general terms, Faber could not speak directly to the four specific cases currently in the media where in all cases teachers are accused of sexual involvement with students.
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"I don't get all that information in the minister's office all the time and in fact, that some of this information sometimes is very sensitive to the giving of due process to the individual. Sometimes, I need not tell anybody, that it has legal implications. You can't just get out there and pronounce somebody to be what they aren't, if we can't necessarily prove it and so it's just walking on very thin nice."
Email
Print