Faber Takes on Deacon Cal
Patrick Faber
The Ministry of Education continues to be embroiled in a testy relationship with Deacon Cal Cathers, who owns the BRC publishing and printing company. BRC provides some textbooks to the Ministry for distribution countrywide, but much less than he used to because the Ministry has chosen to use textbooks from other publishers as well. Cathers continues to write critically about the Ministry, and even blames the continuously poor performance at the PSE on the decision to not use BRC textbooks. Today Minister of Education Patrick Faber had some choice words for Cathers, with even a not so subtle threat thrown in for good measure.
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“Deacon Cal has an agenda and as I’ve said publicly and I repeat it today – the Ministry of Education is the policy-making body for the education system in Belize and we will not be bullied by any one individual who wants to serve his own interests. Deacon Cal simply writes up all of these things because he wants to tell the experts at the Ministry of Education how to do things and while we respect his opinion, that’s all that it is – an opinion. And when you see him writing in the manner in which he writes he writes as a publisher, as somebody who is offering a service to the Ministry of Education. We are the people who are buying, if you will, and we reserve the right to tell the people that we are buying from what it is we want to buy. He cannot tell us what he wants to sell us and he cannot criticize…well he can, he is doing it, but I am saying he should not do it. But for the record as I have always maintained, he can write a million articles. This Ministry will do what it believes is right. And I am not the kind of Minister who just listens to everything or do my own thing. I listen to the technical people and if our technical staff agrees that what should be in the books should be in the books then I am sorry Deacon Cal….your one word or your own agenda will never get you the support. In fact I caution the Deacon because we do have a choice – and I make that very clear – we do have a choice in deciding who will publish books for us, and if it is he continues to criticize the Ministry and in fact pushes his own agenda repeatedly, then I am sure nobody will be terribly unhappy or dissatisfied when it is we have to part ways because he does not cooperate with what the Ministry wants from him.”
