‘Not backing down’

A group of parents is pressing ahead with legal action against the Government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) over the controversial IDB-administered survey that collected sensitive information from hundreds of secondary school students without parental consent.

Human and gender rights activist Felicia Dujon, who is leading the challenge, disclosed on Friday that her team has secured the services of a senior attorney who is working on the matter.

Reporting that many parents have come forward seeking representation, Dujon declared there would be no turning back from their position that the Government and IDB should pay for breaches of the rights of parents/guardians.

“We are not silent, we are working in the background, but you can indicate that it is currently a legal matter…,” she said in an interview with Barbados TODAY.

King’s Counsel Michael Lashley confirmed that he had been approached by Dujon to handle the case.

“We are to have another meeting to see how we move forward,” said Lashley, who is leading a team of lawyers.

Dujon added that one of the aims of the legal action is to have the court set precedence for future cases which would deter others from engaging in such breaches in the first place.

She also disclosed that a proposal is also to be sent to the Government to ensure parental rights are enshrined in the new Constitution.

“….So we don’t have any kind of ambiguity in the Education Act, that it is very clear that parents have the right in terms of making the decisions for the education of their children and what kind of education that is being taught to their children. They have that right, first and foremost.

“So, I think it is important that we go back and highlight that because it seems that now with the new Constitution, we have to ensure that parental rights are part of the Constitution so that there would be no kind of discrepancies… It will be very clear the rights of parents, the rights of the State or persons within the education system or persons within the health system do not infringe on those fundamental rights of parents,” Dujon asserted.

The questions that raised alarm in the IDB survey that was administered to first-form students at five secondary schools in October included whether they drank alcohol without their parents’ approval, deliberately tried to hurt or kill themselves, heard sounds or voices that other people think aren’t there, thought about suicide, or wished they were of the opposite sex.

The IDB and the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training apologised following an outcry from parents and the public about the test.

In a statement on October 6, the IDB said “no offence was intended” and disclosed that the “questions at the centre of concern” were to be omitted from the questionnaire as requested by the Education Ministry but were “inadvertently left in the paper”.

At a press briefing two days later, Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw said the contentious survey was intended to assess the competencies of first-form students in reading, mathematics, and logic.

Since then, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has embarked on its own investigation into the matter to determine if the Data Protection Act had been breached, but Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology David Ishmael, under whose responsibility the department falls, has remained tight-lipped about the status of the probe.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb