CHIEF Education Officer, Mr Olato Sam, said the recent front page Kaieteur News article entitled ‘Hinterland primary students trek miles with logs for hot meals’ raises some pressing concerns in relation to the level of ethical responsibility of journalists. In yesterday’s press release issued by the Education Ministry, Sam sought to respond to the June 5 article, which had accompanying photographs that was reportedly provided to the Kaieteur News by Alliance For Change (AFC) Councillor Nieem Gafoor.

The article had suggested that the students of  Kato Primary School in Region 8 (Potaro/ Siparuni) were regularly made to fetch logs to be used as energy in preparing their meals under the school feeding programme.

Sam said the article raises concern of the ethical responsibility which journalists have vis-à-vis the need to grab catchy headlines and sell newspapers. He said that while he strongly and unequivocally supports freedom of the press and would in no way attempt to curtail those freedoms within a socio-political context, he would still have expected that a thorough investigation would have been done to ascertain the circumstances surrounding this issue prior to the story being published.

Sam highlighted some information which would have been of significant relevance if it could have been established from the onset. This, he said, includes whether the activity shown was a normal practice or a one-off incident; and if the latter, what were the causal factors, as well as if this was happening within school feeding programmes elsewhere, and/or what were the experiences, positive or negative, occurring within the constructs of this programme nationwide.

Sam also indicated that the article should have established what the deeper implications for this and other types of programmes were for the way young people are prepared within the context of limited resources and the clear needs of the population.

Additionally, he highlighted the absence of information on whether there is a correlation between the improved attendance rate and the school feeding programme.

According to Sam, the absence of this information entertains the possibility of potentially harmful conjecture, which can damage a well-established success story within the education system. 

He said it would be interesting to know whether a thorough analysis, or any analysis, of the issues was done prior to the article being published because it would be interesting to know
what are the implications for the children whose pictures have  now been captured for the world to view? What objective is served by the article, and whether the circumstances warrant and justify any potential harm this might bring to the children?

Sam also questioned the implications for the programme, funded for years by a multi-national funding agency, within the constructs of the Education Ministry’s need for such future support to effectively meet the needs of the less fortunate in this society.

“I would hope that these and other relevant questions are routinely asked when issues with such deep implications for our nation’s children are to be addressed in the media. I feel (that) probably because of my professional bias, when we are dealing with the nation’s children, we must ask these questions and be honest with the answers,” he maintained.

According to Sam, at the end of the day, it would be a shame to know that the number of papers sold and the “online readership” numbers quoted are the only motivation. 

He also took the opportunity to reiterate the ministry’s condemnation of the use of children to fetch logs to prepare meals. (Chriseana Ramrekha)