And Minister Fonseca also spoke about the situation at Canaan SDA High School. As we have reported, a teacher was caught preying on a teenage student through social media, but when the parents took the matter to the principal, it took an entire week for the ministry to be informed.
And while the parents of the child had a meeting with the Chief Executive Office and the Chief Education Officer this evening, today Fonseca told us that it shouldn't have taken so long for the ministry to get involved, and that the management of schools have to act with greater urgency to protect their students.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"Obviously it's a very troubling matter, we've gotten a report on the matter, we've engaged from the very beginning with the management and the principal of the school. Our concern is the time that they took to bring this to the attention of the Ministry of Education, the authorities, so that we could take action. You know, these are very serious allegations, very serious matters and we all have to take them very seriously and certainly as the Minister of Education, I do, at the Ministry of Education, we do, but we have to ensure that at every other level of the education system, the management, the principals, that they all take these reports very seriously and act on them with a sense of urgency when it is brought to their attention. So we're going to have that meeting today but we're very confident based on our discussions with the management that we'll be able to put in place some stricter policies and procedures that will ensure that this type of delay in reporting the matter to the proper authorities does not happen again."
Reporter:
"Should this teacher even be in the system working?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"Well, I'm the Minister of Education, I don't want to pre judge the matter, I don't want to make any statements that will affect the process, the BNTU's already come out to say that they will be representing the teacher, defending the teacher, so I have to be responsible because I have to work with everyone but certainly there must be zero tolerance for that kind of behavior in our education system, in our schools, we must do everything to protect our children, that is our sacred responsibility."
Courtney Menzies:
"And this act has been going for decades, we've always heard about teachers preying on students, I've seen it for myself when I was in high school, I've heard it for years, what steps do we take to ensure that these teachers can be weeded out, because sometimes students might even be afraid to report it, so what steps do we take?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I think you're right, but I think we have gotten a lot better, we have put in place stronger policies, stronger regulations, we have talked about it more, so it has become more… it's no longer some dark secret, so I think the bottom line is that when we uncover these things and there's evidence to support the allegations, we deal with these individuals forcefully, decisively, and we deal with them through the criminal justice system so that when we start to send these people to jail and they realize they're going to jail for preying on young people, I think the message will be sent loud and clear."
