Concerns raised by the Toshao and residents of Chinese Landing about the portrayal of the village’s Toshao in a Ministry of Education Primary School text book has forced the Education Ministry to issue an apology and withdraw the text book.

In the text book, which is in circulation among Grade Three students nationally, there is a fictional story which states that the Toshao at Chinese Landing in Region One had refused the school feeding programme because he believes the money is not enough for children of the community and is an insult.

While it is a fictional lesson in the book and students are asked to discuss it as part of their school work, the actual Toshao of Chinese Landing issued a disclaimer about the story and raised his concern about its interpretation today.

The Toshao’s comments gained traction online and other persons including parents, openly voiced their concern.

In a video statement this afternoon, Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussein admitted that the Ministry of Education had dropped the ball with its quality assurance that should have covered the text book before its approval, printing and distribution. He said sensitivities to cultures and communities should have been handled better.

“The Ministry of Education has always prided itself on ensuring that we provide high quality, inclusive, culturally sensitive educational material. This is clearly a failure on our quality assurance mechanism, and 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. This book will be immediately withdrawn, reviewed, and then reprinted for distribution….on behalf of the Ministry of Education and as Chief Education Officer, I want to express regret, I want to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. We acknowledge that the materials are quite insensitive. While it is a scenario that has been presented, there are several other scenarios which could have been used and which were not as sensitive as this”, the Chief Education Officer said.

The Toshao of the village said the negative information printed in a text book to be taught in schools about the village of Chinese Landing and its Toshao was quite disturbing and has left lingering questions about the intent of the insensitive text.

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