Education Minister slams State Newspaper for publishing sex photos of students

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, has lashed out at the State Newspaper – the Guyana Chronicle – for publishing photos of students in a video having oral sex.

The newspaper published the photos in its Tuesday, October 07 edition on the front page and has since issued an apology in today’s edition.

Manikchand, in a statement issued on her Facebook Page, said she was stunned when she saw the newspaper.

“This is absolutely abhorrent, in poor taste and unprofessional journalistic work. I hope to see an unqualified apology for what was very, very poor judgment on the part of the newspaper. In fact I did take a moment out of my day to call the Chair of the Board to register my horror and I was assured that the matter was being dealt with, with a view to ensuring that this type of reporting did not happen again,” Manickchand said.

She noted that the Ministry is still investigating the video.

“We must as a nation (home, school, community,) address how we will engage with our children in this new world, this new Guyana where information technology presents all the exciting opportunities that we wish to make available to our young people while at the same time exposing them to such risk. We can no longer shirk our collective responsibility and bury our heads in the sand. We will have to talk to them about, inter alia, sex, about sex and the use of the computer, about sex and the use of the cell phone, about sex and Facebook, about sex… we will have to engage them as parents and as schools, as churches and temples and mosques.”

The police are also in possession of the video. It is not clear as to what course of action the Police Force intends to take.