Hi there, I posted the following comment to the BC Education Plan website recently but it was not approved:

Decide for yourself: Is this censorship? Was it necessary? You can read the two emails I received from BC Education Plan moderators and my response below. Cheers, Richard Ajabu
From: EDUC BC Education Plan EDUC:EX [mailto:bceducationplan@gov.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 1:27 PM To: [Richard Ajabu] Cc: EDUC BC Education Plan EDUC:EX Subject: Comment #6289 Unapproved Comment and Interim Response (BC's Education Plan) Thank you for submitting your comment to the BCs Education Plan discussion forum. Wed like to post your comment but, unfortunately, it doesnt meet our Moderation Policy. We wont post comments that, in our opinion, are objectionable or inappropriate, including comments that:

1. 2. 3.

are defamatory, threatening, hateful, indecent, obscene, illegal, immoral or sexually explicit make unproven or unsupported accusations against individuals, groups or organizations potentially or actually infringe any third partys copyright, trademark, right of privacy, publicity or any other intellectual property or other right

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4. 5. 6. 7.

contain information about or images (i.e., photographs, video, or digitized or digitally reproduced illustrations) of any person other than yourself advertise a product, person or organization contain long embedded URLs, excessive links, code, or other material that could compromise the integrity or security of the Discussion Forum, or of the website or server on which the Discussion Forum resides are far off-topic.

For easy reference, weve included your comment below. Youre welcome to edit the comment so it meets our Moderation Policy and then resubmit it. Comment: Submitted on 2012/10/05 at 11:02 am | In reply to Richard Ajabu. It is my understanding that each BC School District Superintendent is an employee of the elected School Board they serve. I wonder whether the School Board for each SD Superintendent so closely linked with GELP, Pearson, etc was fully informed of that relationship and approved of the actions and directions taken by their employee? If not, I wonder what those elected School Board Trustees are doing to better govern the behaviour of THEIR School District Superintendent?

Richard Ajabu

While your comment may not be appropriate to post publicly, I have forwarded it to the Ministry Correspondence Office to answer your specific question(s). If you have any questions about our Moderation Policy and how its applied, please contact us at bceducationplan@gov.bc.ca. From Moderator [redacted] On behalf of the BCs Education Plan Moderation Team

http://www.bcedplan.ca

BC's EDUCATION PLAN

ON THE WEB: WWW.BCEDPLAN.CA ON TWITTER: @BCEDPLAN

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From: Richard Ajabu Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 4:28 PM To: 'EDUC BC Education Plan EDUC:EX' Subject: RE: Comment #6289 Unapproved Comment Hi there, I responded inline, below, in RED Cheers, Richard Ajabu

From: EDUC BC Education Plan EDUC:EX [mailto:bceducationplan@gov.bc.ca] Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 2:23 PM To: [Richard Ajabu] Cc: EDUC BC Education Plan EDUC:EX Subject: Re: Comment #6289 Unapproved Comment Hi Richard, We thought you might appreciate some elaboration on why we made the decision not to post your comment on the BCED Plan Forum. [RA] I already received your rejection of my comment (#6289) and I am interested to see what else you have to say. Sometimes we receive comments that are obviously in contravention of our Moderation Policy. Those are easy. Most of the time though, its not so black and white. Comments tend to fall on a spectrum. For example: Is the conversation thread moving too far off topic, or just a little? How long is too long? At what point does an expression of opinion become an unproven accusation? At what point does a difference of opinion devolve into a personal attack? We also look each comments tone and the context in the overall discussion. We are aware that the decisions we make may not only impact the BCED Plan forum, but also our Ministrys dialogue with the public in general. [RA] I suggest that your team give consideration and priority to your larger obligations: Charter Rights (Freedom of Expression) and the ultimate purpose of the BCEdPlan forum (discussion for the improvement of education in BC). It is my opinion that Ministry of Education employees may be in a real and/or apparent conflict of interest while operating the BCEdPlan forums and I suggest that such citizen forums be operated by a more independent organization like ElectionsBC. Our decision regarding your most recent comment was not made without careful consideration. Overall, we felt this particular conversation thread had swayed a bit too far off the topic we had posted. You had already expressed your opinion on GELP at some length and provided links to information you felt supported your position in two previous comments on this conversation thread - as a result, your third submission appeared redundant, since it was a reiteration of what you had already said. [RA] The point I made was not redundant; in my two previous GELP related posts [ here & here ] I did NOT raise the significant point that School Boards have responsibility for their Superintendents. If your team members think a comment appears redundant, they should consider simply posting a reply with that observation on the forum and request further clarification of the relevance of the users comment. Some citizens may agree with your observations. Some may not. Some may change their minds and/or form new ideas based upon the discussions that transpire on those public forums. That is the point of a forum. By censoring comments unnecessarily, your team robs us all of a fundamental benefit of democracy. In addition, the questions you posed regarding superintendents, whether they were intended to be rhetorical or not, tread very close to being an unproven/unsupported accusation, which is also against our policy. [RA] Those questions were intended to inspire thought and discussion about current events regarding governance, administration, decision-making, accountability and responsibility in our education system; and how those aspects of our st education system might be improved as part of any 21 Century transformations included in the BC Ed Plan. I disagree with your characterization that my legitimate questions are unproven/unsupported accusation and I find your reaction, censoring the comment, contrary to the principles of Freedom of Expression and Democracy.

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As you may know, we are in the process of redesigning our website. One of the features we hope to include is an ability to submit discussion forum topics of your choosing. We trust this will address some of your complaints that we are rejecting comments that are off topic. If the topic we suggest is not the one you wish to comment on you will be welcome to submit your own. Of course your suggestions will be reviewed against our Moderation Policy, as always. [RA] That requested improvement sounds like a step forward. I look forward to checking it out. Although we can understand you may still be unhappy, we hope this information provides a bit more insight into why we felt it necessary. [RA] I am disappointed. And I think these discussions would better serve us all if they were happening on the BCEdPlan public forum instead of via individual email.

Sincerely, The BCs Education Plan Moderation Team

B.C.s EDUCATION PLAN

ON THE WEB: WWW.BCEDPLAN.CA ON TWITTER: @BCEDPLAN 250-415-3966 For easy reference, weve included your comment below. Comment: Submitted on 2012/10/05 at 11:02 am | In reply to Richard Ajabu. It is my understanding that each BC School District Superintendent is an employee of the elected School Board they serve. I wonder whether the School Board for each SD Superintendent so closely linked with GELP, Pearson, etc was fully informed of that relationship and approved of the actions and directions taken by their employee? If not, I wonder what those elected School Board Trustees are doing to better govern the behaviour of THEIR School District Superintendent?

Richard Ajabu

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