The Education Minister Norbu Wangchuk, on his Facebook post Saturday night, has apologised to Bhutanese working in Australia for “toilet” remarks after a voice recording of his, went viral on social media.
There were backlash from netizens on Minister’s choice of words calling them as derogatory and defamatory when he said Bhutanese in Australia clean toilets.
The minister said his comments was not intended to demean the work that Bhutanese do at Australia. He said the speech which was targeted to the teachers in a particular school was intended to encourage educators to raise the quality of education to provide skill-sets to students.
“We are working hard, taking up manual jobs such as cleaning toilets which I have mentioned in my speech,” he said. “So it was to tell my teachers that we must dream bigger, we must look into the 21st century and raise the quality of education and prepare our children now that in their future as they go out into the world they are able to compete anybody else in the world and find for them a rightful place in any country in the world.”
On his post, he said he would not intentionally cause hurt and misgivings since he had also worked in Australia; and that some of his family members continue to work there.
About his viral voice recording, the minister said the message he wanted to convey through the speech had been pulled out of context.
“Unfortunately what I had said has been blown out of proportion,” he said. “It was an hour speech which has been reduced to one minute only and I can understand because now elections are near and different political interest groups has deliberately taken out this one minute clip and negatively portrayed the message.”
Lyonpo Norbu Wangchuk said his speech was put through as ill-intended and for malicious political purposes which he said was unfortunate.
After his voice recording went viral on social media, the Education Minister received criticism from public, some asking for an apology while others described his remarks as callous and appalling.
