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Govt. to scrap children’s textbook that attacks former Toshao
Kaieteur News- Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussain, issued an apology on Thursday afternoon, after the current Toshao of a Region One Village, Nikita Miller, in a Facebook post, called out the government for utilizing a children’s textbook to spread its political propaganda against her village.
The cover of the textbook and the section which reportedly attacks former Chinese Landing Toshao, Orin Fernandes
The textbook accused the former Toshao of insulting children by refusing the government’s feeding programme because he believed the money was not enough.
Miller called it negative information and lies. “To see this negative information printed in a textbook, to be taught in schools about a Toshao and the village of Chinese Landing, is quite disturbing, leaving us to wonder what the motive behind such inaccurate and defamatory information about our village is,” she wrote. She added, “Our former Toshao never refused or commented concerning the school feeding programme,” before explaining, “Instead, he built a concrete kitchen with village royalties.”
According to Miller, the Toshao had to use village royalties because the funds allocated by the government would have been insufficient for the project. She noted that the government had deposited the cheques, but the money was never withdrawn. The Ministry of Education’s apology was issued minutes after Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo, at his weekly press conference on Thursday, said, “it is unacceptable”
On behalf of the Education Ministry, Hussain confirmed that “insensitive materials” were found in one of the ministry’s textbooks. “This textbook is, of course, Guyanese In The World. It’s a grade three textbook which is used by primary school learners for Social Studies”, Hussain said. He added that the ministry “deeply regrets the offence or the distress” that the content caused to parents, students, the wider community, and especially the residents of Chinese Landing.
Hussain called it a failure on the ministry’s quality assurance mechanism. “I want to assure members of the public that this error will be fixed… and relooked at, to ensure that this does not happen again,” the CEO assured, before adding that the textbook will be immediately withdrawn, reviewed and reprinted for redistribution.
The section that reportedly attacks former Toshao, Orin Fernandes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, again, on behalf of the of the Ministry of Education, and as Chief Education Officer, I want to express regret. I want to offer our unconditional apology for the errors which have been found in this book,” Hussain said.
Chinese Landing is presently in court with the State over its titled lands which were reportedly sold to a miner. The land dispute led the government shutting down all mining in the area, affecting the livelihood of the villagers.
The former Toshao, Orin Fernandes, has been at the forefront of the fight on behalf of his people to get back their titled lands, which reportedly contains gold.
(Govt. to scrap children’s textbook that attacks former Toshao)
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