The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has ap­point­ed a new Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer (CEO). Dr Pe­ter Smith has now tak­en over the po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, the min­istry has as­sured the change in the po­si­tion was not due to the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the Pres­i­dent’s Medal (Gold) award.

A se­nior of­fi­cial was blamed for the con­fu­sion that led to the min­istry hav­ing to give a joint award to Ameer­ah Beekhoo and Aaron Subero.

Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) chair­man Eliz­a­beth Crouch an­nounced the ap­point­ment of Smith min­utes be­fore the close of yes­ter­day’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Lo­cal Au­thor­i­ties, Ser­vice Com­mis­sions and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties.

In in­form­ing JSC Chair­man Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh of this lat­est de­ci­sion by the TSC, Crouch as­sured, “It was ac­com­plished through a very ro­bust as­sess­ment cen­tre ex­er­cise.”

In ex­tend­ing a con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage to Smith while re­cu­per­at­ing at home from the COVID-19 virus, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the TSC had been work­ing on fill­ing this va­can­cy for some time.

Smith had been act­ing as di­rec­tor of the Ed­u­ca­tion Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, a post pre­vi­ous­ly held by his pre­de­ces­sor Lisa Hen­ry-David, who was ap­point­ed to act as CEO fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran al­most two years ago.

Hen­ry-David will now re­turn to her sub­stan­tive post as di­rec­tor of the Ed­u­ca­tion Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.

At the start of yes­ter­day’s JSC, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Sharon Ash­man-Jack apol­o­gised for Hen­ry-David’s “un­avoid­able ab­sence” from the ses­sion but pro­vid­ed no fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion.

In a press re­lease is­sued by the MoE last Fri­day, of­fi­cials claimed a mix-up had oc­curred af­ter the se­nior of­fi­cial over­stepped their re­mit. The min­istry is cur­rent­ly ex­plor­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion pro­ce­dures avail­able to them in the mat­ter.

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