At the back of the Report Book is a rule saying that if the student is participating in activities planned by the public, they should get permission from school before involving themselves. One student noted that their school administration recently sent a circular to all parents stating that children could only participate in civil society and other public activities with prior permission from the school. If we participate in such activities without permission from the school, the regulation is that we are suspended for a week. So it is completely banned. According to one student: We are only able to participate in activities that the schools permit us to participate in. We should be able to participate in public activities, like it is possible [for children] to do in foreign countries. That’s how we will be able to develop our skills. The media Many children felt that they are not represented in the media. This was especially the case with children with special needs. Deaf children in particular are not represented in the media at all. The children suggested that this should change: …[B]ecause they cannot hear, it is important the media provides them with information…they are keen to know more about things. Also, things cannot be done the way that the children want unless their views are sought, and taken into account. The children also believe that things that are most beneficial to them are things that have been planned and implemented according to how they want them to be done.39 Secondary school children, too, agreed that there was only limited representation of their views in the media. Once again, the findings may have been different had there been more ‘average’ students within the group – these results may have been tempered by the fact that there present in the focus groups were children who presented the very few children’s television programmes currently broadcast on Maldivian television. Even so, children were broadly unhappy with the level of representation in the media. Yes, there is a Youth TV channel but it is not functioning at its full potential. It provides only entertainment—we don’t think this should be the case. 39 Remarks made at the presentation following the focus group discussions. The presentation by children with special needs was made by the facilitator from the Human Rights Commission (with one of the children), hence the third person speech. 39