Tyrone Reid, Enterprise Reporter

Another textbook is to be withdrawn from the nation's secondary-school system.

This time, the book is on the Education Ministry's approved list. It was found wanting during an ongoing audit commissioned by Minister of Education Andrew Holness.

The audit was ordered after The Gleaner broke news that a home economics book with a controversial clause regarding same-sex unions was being used in schools.

However, this latest book, which is authored by Michael Keene and is entitled New Steps in Religious Education for the Caribbean Book 3, lists homosexual unions as a norm. "Many people do find it difficult to accept that same-sex relationships are indeed normal," reads a section in the book that ministry officials are most concerned about.

"It is on the approved textbook listing, so we are withdrawing our endorsement of that text. We will, therefore, not distribute the book any longer and it will be replaced for the next school year," says Dr. Charlene Ashley, director of communications at the Ministry of Education.

However, Dr. Ashley tells The Sunday Gleaner that the book would not be immediately removed from the system. She explained that schools would be allowed to use the book until the end of the school year and then it would be removed from the system.

"What we have asked the teachers to do in dealing with the issue is that they carefully explain to students the social context and the realities of the Jamaican experience," Ashley discloses.

She adds: "We appreciate that there is a need for contending views and for them to be debated and discussed, and the ministry is not against that. However, the point of view that is presented in the text is contrary to the spirit of the laws of Jamaica and to our nation's social values, and in turn, to the policy direction of the ministry, and because of that, the ministry cannot support the text."

Books will be withdrawn

Ashley says all copies of the books will be withdrawn from schools and another text approved. However, the ministry has not yet identified the replacement textbook.

Jasper Lawrence, chief education officer in the Ministry of Education, is unable to say exactly how the book got past the ministry's established panel and into the system. However, he "conjectures" that the book could have been passed by a liberal panel, or it could have been due to human error. In this regard, he says, the ministry will be reviewing the mechanism used to select and approve textbooks for the nation's children.

"We are reviewing the entire process. We ensure that the review process is as robust as is absolutely possible. So, we will make every effort to ensure that no book that we didn't want on the approved list slips through on the approved list," states Lawrence.