#BTSpeakingOut – The alarming computer science test

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

The tolerance of parents in Barbados has been tested in an unprecedented way with the conduct of a survey, disguised as a computer science test, that was foisted upon eleven-year-olds at secondary schools in Barbados on Monday October 3rd with the full complicity of the Ministry of Education. The survey was inappropriate for children of that age and posed specific questions about gender and sexuality as well as questions relating to their race and social status.

An apology attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was issued indicating that the Ministry of Education had objected to specific questions of concern, but that those specific questions were inadvertently left in the survey. We are therefore left to conclude that the Ministry of Education did not approve the survey. The survey was not conducted under the guidance of teachers, but by invigilators who were specifically assigned for that purpose by the international organizers. The teachers apparently never saw the survey.

Family-Faith-Freedom, Barbados, strongly condemns this intrusion into the lives of our children without the knowledge or consent of their parents. We believe that this survey was one of the early actions being taken by a consortium of UN agencies, including UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, IPPF and WHO to introduce Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) into schools in the Caribbean, including Barbados.

The fact that children were specifically required to write their names on the survey shows that the data was not intended to be anonymous. The following questions must be asked. What was the purpose of the survey? What will be done with the data collected? What is the agreement between the Ministry of Education, the IDB and CODE.ORG, the organization that allegedly managed the survey, with regard to ownership and management of the data collected?

We believe that the questions posed in the survey have the potential to do irreparable harm to the minds of the children surveyed by planting seeds of confusion and discord, and encouraging them to challenge well-established cultural, social, religious and moral values that we as a people have always held as sacred.

We wish to again caution our Government and in particular the Ministry of Education about the negative aspects and likely consequences of CSE, and urge them to recognize and take seriously the insidious agenda of organizations whose intention is to sexualize our young children through inappropriate instruction and materials, normalize the concept of multiple genders by teaching that gender is non-binary and that children can choose to be male or female or any other gender they choose, and to normalize same sex relationships by teaching children that having two mothers or two fathers is normal and that abortion is a healthy and acceptable method of contraception.

Further, we call upon the relevant authorities to critically review all materials proposed for use in Health and Family Life Education curricula so as to identify, prevent and remove all harmful CSE information, and to respect parental rights by making these materials available for public access, review and input.

Family-Faith-Freedom, Barbados, is a registered Charity that represents a large cross section of Christian believers and concerned citizens who seek to preserve wholesome family values and the principles of the Kingdom of God.

Family-Faith-Freedom, Barbados

Baptist House, Constitution Road, Bridgetown

(Hutson Inniss, Secretary)