EDUCATION Minister, Priya Manickchand on Sunday confirmed that the Facebook video with two boys and two girls engaging in sexual activities are indeed students of a secondary school in Georgetown, and according to her, this is very disturbing to her and the ministry.

Speaking with this reporter on the issue, the minister said that the matter was first brought to the attention of the Education Ministry last Thursday and an investigation was immediately launched into the matter.
Last week a video showing four students who this newspaper later learnt are from Form Five of the school, which was also identified, hit Facebook and went viral over the weekend with well over a thousand shares and hundreds of comments.
The video and comments were also sent to the Minister via her Facebook in the form of messages and tags by persons known and unknown to her.
POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED
In the video, one of the female students was sitting on a male student and appeared to be engaging in penetrative sex, while the other student was seen on the video performing oral sex on another male student. All four children were positively identified to this newspaper by persons who are familiar with them, their school and the classes they are in.
Minister Manickchand told the Chronicle that the matter will be thoroughly investigated, and among the answers being sought by the ministry is where, when and how the video was able to be recorded and where the supervisors of the children were at the time of the incident.
The Minister said that the children who are in the video will be dealt with by the ministry, but she was quick to point out that it will not be done in a way that would affect the children and their image.
STRONG MESSAGE
She said that the ministry needs to send a strong message to other students, but the interest of the children at the centre of the video would also have to be considered. She has already committed to ensuring that the Welfare Department of the Education Ministry will be involved and there will be some level of counselling for the children.
Over the years, there have been several videos of school-aged children in their uniforms performing sexual intercourse both in Guyana and other Caribbean countries. The matter is one that the Region’s education ministries have been battling to bring under control.
In her interview with this newspaper, Minister Manickchand called on persons, especially school children, to be very slow to capture every moment of their lives on mobile devices and readily share it with the world.
She said that while the photos, videos and information can be shared with just the click of a button, sometimes the very content of these messages, photos and videos can have the potential to cause long-term damage to one’s image.