The Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture has suspended tackling a proposed measure recognizing the British School Manila (BSM) as an international educational institution after it heard the complaint filed by the parent of an 18-year old student of the school who jumped to his death in a building in Makati City.
This, even as officials of the British School of Manila (BSM), opposed perceptions they were “heartless” saying they too have been “devastated by this tragedy” and prides itself of having a “curriculum with a heart.”
Senators instead castigated BSM officials for failing to put the professor in question, Natalie Mann, under preventive suspension and allowed her to resign and leave the country for South Africa a few days after the incident occurred and without even giving her an opportunity to speak with the parents of Liam Joseph Madamba, the student who committed suicide after he and another student were reprimanded for plagiarism.
An emotional Mrs. Trixie Madamba and executives of the BSM faced off at the Senate hearing on Tuesday, where BSM officials denied they were remiss in the conduct of their internal investigations and rejected insinuations they were callous.
Simon Bewley, chairman of the BSM’s board of governors, told senators the school, which originally caters to children of diplomatic community and expatriate families, “is a school where the best interests of the children in our care, are above all else” and is concerned over the well-being, education and safety of their students.
“The school’s partnership with Manila and the Philippines is not just one of words, but is very much one of our actions,” Bewlay said.
MANILA BULLETIN
