An apology has been made by the Education Minister following teaching unions rejecting claims made by the most senior civil servant in his department.

Dr Alex Allinson told the Courier that he apologises ’for any hurt caused to individual teachers’ in relation to recent claims made by the Department of Education, Sport and Culture chief executive officer, Professor Ronald Barr.

As the Examiner reported on the front page this week, official complaints were lodged by teachers’ union NASUWT and school leaders’ union NAHT against ’entirely unfounded’ comments made by Professor Barr.

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During a Tynwald scrutiny committee, the professor blamed the ongoing industrial dispute over pay and conditions in part for disparity in remote learning given by different schools and for mixed messages sent to parents during the lockdown period.

The unions described his comments as being ’grievously inaccurate’. He was speaking at a special scrutiny session of the public accounts committee that had been looking at the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

An investigation into the comments has been launched with a report due to be shared.

Dr Allinson has since said: ’At the evidence session at the public accounts committee, questions were asked about online learning and particularly about the governance of it and how the department made sure that the quality of teaching was uniform.

’The chief executive officer made some comments about the difficulty in doing that and also put that on the backdrop of an industrial dispute that still hasn’t been settled.’

He added that discussions had to be stopped because physical meetings were not possible, but the negotiations will be restarted again once the state of emergency is lifted.

’I know that some of the comments have caused some people to be unhappy with what he said and I apologise for any hurt caused to individual teachers,’ he said.

’What he was talking about was communication problems and particularly with some of the trade unions that we have been working closely with throughout this period.’

An executive summary issued by the committee stated that there was ’significant room for improvement, irrespective of the industrial dispute’.

It read: ’We have heard of some excellent practice in schools as individual members of staff have made herculean efforts to support their pupils at this difficult time.’

The report called the ’speedy’ establishment of hub schools ’a good example of quick thinking to a significant problem’ and added that inconsistencies of communication and online provision were ’unfortunate side effects of the current state of affairs’.

’Performance management, quality assurance and effective leadership has seemingly evaporated during the crisis,’ it stated.

’According to the chief executive this is a direct result of the industrial dispute, however for reasons already stated we are unable to opine on this.’

It said the ultimate impact has been a ’wide disparity of provision which has been to the detriment of young people and their families’.

Teaching unions began a work to rule on February 24, but said they would work with the government over the Covid-19 outbreak.