Minister of Education: Investigation Underway Into Reports of Bullying of Special Needs Student

Francis Fonseca

Over recent days, reports have surfaced that a student with special needs attending Wesley Upper School has been the victim of bullying by his fellow schoolmates, and belittling comments from one of his teachers. According to the report, the child was so humiliated by his most recent experiences that he expressed the wish to discontinue attending classes. Today we had a chance to ask the Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca how the ministry has addressed the report. He says that as far as the initial findings of an investigation suggests, the bullying did not happen at school but on the street.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“The ministry is working very hard to ensure that, you know, that bullying is something of the past. You know, in the past we’ve grown up in a culture where there’s a lot of bullying that takes place in our schools, and we have at the ministry a very strong policy of zero tolerance for any kind of bullying behavior. Now in the case of this specific student at Wesley Primary School, we are, as you rightly said, we are carrying out a comprehensive investigation into the matter. We are also dealing, of course, with the issue of diverse abilities because this is a special needs student, and they are particularly susceptible to bullying. So we have to be very protective of them and very careful with them. But I have to say that our initial investigations, and I emphasize initial because there’s a lot more to do, shows that if any bullying was taking place, it was not taking place within the confines of the school compound. You know, there are suggestions that perhaps outside of school on the way from his home to school, that there were incidents that involved bullying, but, initially, I’m satisfied that in terms of the classroom, inside the classroom and on the campus, that there were not children who were targeting the specific child. This child is, you know, is not a new student at the school. This child has been there, I think, from the very beginning, from, I think, standard one and has moved up. We take these allegations very seriously. The child and his mother have come forward with serious allegations. Those are going to be looked into, examined and investigated fully, and at the end of that outcome, we will then be able to see exactly what happened.”

Marion Ali

“What about the allegation his mom made that – I don’t recall if it’s a teacher or a principal making the comment allegedly that – they don’t like teaching students who can’t learn or who are slow learners?”

Francis Fonseca

“Yeah, again, we have no evidence to support that as yet, but we’re still looking into that issue. Obviously that can’t be acceptable, but we do understand obviously that, you know, um, special needs students, um, you know, require special attention.”