Reference is made to the comments by "A Christian Outlook" on Church schools and the 2006 Health Promotion Unit survey (The Sunday Times, May 14).

According to "A Christian Outlook", "the Curia was offered the possibility of distributing the survey minus the 'offending' page."

The questionnaire was distributed to Church secondary schools without prior consultation and approval. The Church Secretariat for Education called the Health Promotion Unit to discuss the questionnaire that had already been distributed to Church schools.

The HPU suggested the removal of the pages with the objectionable questions in the Maltese and English versions. However, the questions and the pages in the questionnaire were numbered. Moreover, the objectionable questions overflowed on two pages, requiring the removal of more than one page forming part of the health questions. It was felt that such a move would also have given rise to speculation and gossiping among students about the missing questions.

Had the Church Secretariat for Education been consulted before going to print, the Secretariat would have agreed to have the questionnaire printed without the objectionable questions in the first place.

One fully concurs with the comment made by "A Christian Outlook" that the way questions are structured, in such surveys, is very important.

As regards what happened after the issue of the questionnaire was raised in a TV programme, here are the facts: (a) immediately after the TVM discussion concerned, a representative of the Church's Secretariat for Education explained the situation to the PBS newsroom; (b) the day after, I gave explainations to The Times and The Malta Independent; (c) on May 7, a clarification was published in the three English-language Sunday newspapers that carried news items and/or comments on the issue. This means that all the media that touched upon the issue were reached.

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