Response to Guyana Times Article “Autistic child allegedly abused by teachers at school”
(July 18, 2018) – The Ministry of Education has taken note of an article published on page 12 in the Guyana Times Newspaper on Wednesday, July 18th, 2018 under the headline “Autistic child allegedly abused by teachers at school”.
Noting the severity of the allegations in the article an investigation was done. It was revealed that the matter was already brought to the attention of the Ministry of Education and it was addressed through a meeting of Special Education Needs Officers, Welfare Officers, and teachers of the David Rose Special School inclusive of the Head Teacher and the parent of the child along with a representative of the Guyana Teachers Union held on Monday June 11th, 2018.
Following that fruitful engagement, it was agreed that the school will have the parent at the school once per week to work along with teachers and to become acquainted with the intervention strategies elaborated to her child. The hope is that this will foster a better teacher-parent relationship. Also, the teachers will have an opportunity to become aware of the parent’s strategies for dealing with her child.
Additionally, staff development sessions will be held with teachers of the school on building teacher-parent relationships. The child’s parent and teachers were all made aware of their roles and responsibilities in this process.
It was concluded that the incident with the glue gun was an accident and not as a result of any deliberate wrongdoing of the teacher. The teachers were cautioned about being even more careful when using these kinds of equipment around pupils.
The Ministry of Education takes very seriously its responsibility to educate the nation. Further, the Ministry will never condone any behaviour that puts the nation’s children in harm’s way and will ensure that the school is a very safe space for our future leaders.