Consult parents this time, Dujon cautions

A human rights advocate is urging the Government to seek the permission of parents before executing a plan to give students a diagnostic test to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental health.

Felicia Dujon, a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, said she hopes there will not be a repeat of what transpired last October when an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) survey was administered to first-form students at some schools without parental consent.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that third, fourth and fifth formers would take the diagnostic test.

But in an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dujon said parents were still trying to come to grips with what transpired regarding the IDB survey which was administered as a Computer Science pre-test and quizzed the students on gender and sexuality-related topics and also gathered information pertaining to their parents.

“I don’t particularly have an issue [with the test]. I have a grave concern, primarily, considering what happened in October 2022, so I think it is important that parents are consulted again because it seems like they are already saying which students will be targeted and I just feel that they should consult parents and parents should be given the option whether they want their child to participate in the survey or not.

“We cannot allow them to do that.

As long as the students are in the care of the Ministry [of Education], they have the responsibility to notify the parents or guardians to get their consent because, first of all, I do not think that parents would know what is in that diagnostic test, given the past experience that they had. So I think it would be of concern and to err on the side of caution, I think it is important that both the ministry and parents be consulted on the type of test the children will be doing,” Dujon, an outspoken child advocate said.

“Yes, they are telling us a diagnostic test but we do not know how the test will be structured, what kinds of questions will be included in those tests. Of course, if it is asking medical questions, questions dealing with mental health. I think it is important that parents are consulted on that to grant consent and not just take it on their own volition to do the test during class hours.”

Dujon said because of the IDB fiasco, parents were now more cautious than ever.

Additionally, she stressed that the targeted age groups identified were minors and, therefore, parental consent was required.

“I think it’s important that the Ministry of Education, the State and the Prime Minister understand the position they have placed parents in.

It’s not that parents never trusted the individuals in the Ministry or the State, but what has happened makes parents very worrisome as to what exactly is the goal of those tests and, of course, the parents should be given full transparency given the violation that occurred in October, given that they were not transparent, given that they did not consult parents and then we have students who were affected mentally and psychologically by that quiz,” Dujon said.

“Regardless of them saying they are going for a higher age group, it doesn’t matter because you are still dealing with minors and the fact you are dealing with minors, parents have to be involved.”
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb