The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training may soon be setting up an ethics review committee.
This was alluded to by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley today, as she weighed in on the public outcry to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) survey, which was conducted in some secondary schools.
The Prime Minister was speaking at Ilaro Court, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Barbados and China, for the redevelopment of the National Stadium at Waterford, St. Michael.
Ms. Mottley expressed disappointment that the survey had exposed students to an inappropriate line of questioning after the Ministry of Education had indicated its concerns about some of the questions.
The committee, she added, would help the Ministry manage and govern the administering of surveys in a more effective way to prevent a recurrence.
While thanking the IDB for its “quick and rapid apology”, the Prime Minister said: “But I say to them and to all others that Barbadian schoolchildren are not to be guinea pigs, for people in circumstances where it is deeply inappropriate and where you are seeking to expose them to things that are especially age inappropriate.”
She further stated: “I’ve said to the Minister that we need to ensure going forward, and I’ve had discussions with a number of people that clearly we live in an era now where the Ministry will have to establish an ethics review committee to make sure that those things that you go into schools to talk to or survey, with respect to children, pass a minimum threshold test and that we are not therefore allowing persons to feel that it is open season on our children. We are not supportive of that.”