–Chief Education Officer says book will be withdrawn, corrected and redistributed

CHIEF Education Officer (CEO), Saddam Hussain, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, has apologised for insensitive material in the Grade Three text book “Guyanese in the World,” and has promised a higher level of quality assurance and a withdrawal of the existing material.
Hussain made the apology on Thursday afternoon after the matter was brought to his attention.

He said: “As Chief Education Officer, I want to acknowledge the concerns raised by members of the public. As Chief Education Officer, I want to say that the Ministry of Education deeply regrets the offense or the distress that has been caused to parents, to students, to the wider community and especially to the residents of Chinese Landing. The Ministry of Education has always prided itself on ensuring that we provide high-quality, inclusive, culturally sensitive education material.”
Hussain said that it is a failure of the ministry’s quality assurance mechanism.

The Chief Education Officer, in his unequivocal apology, said: “I want to assure members of the public that this error will be fixed, our quality assurance mechanism will be looked at in an effort to ensure that this does not happen again.”
He said that the book will be immediately withdrawn, reviewed and reprinted for distribution.

Hussain said while it was a scenario that was presented, there were several other less insensitive scenarios that could have been presented.