My heart warmed in re­sponse to the an­nounce­ment by the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, that the 24 stu­dents re­moved from the Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary School were to start a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme from yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, there are some con­cerns with this ini­tia­tive.

The idea is wel­come and sore­ly need­ed but I won­der how well this pro­gramme was thought out be­fore its in­tro­duc­tion or is it an­oth­er hasti­ly con­coct­ed scheme in re­sponse to the hype of the sit­u­a­tion.

First­ly, has this pro­gramme ex­ist­ed be­fore with­in the Min­istry and why was it the best kept se­cret in the coun­try when so many pre­vi­ous cas­es war­rant­ed a sim­i­lar re­sponse? Sev­er­al stu­dents in the past have demon­strat­ed se­ri­ous mis­con­duct at our schools, and have on­ly re­ceived sus­pen­sions or in some cas­es their in­ci­dents were swept un­der the car­pet, while oth­ers were left to their own demise or be­come school drop outs, when they could have ben­e­fit­ted from re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

One won­ders al­so about the con­di­tions of the fa­cil­i­ty se­lect­ed for this pur­pose. From the re­port it is sug­gest­ed that this build­ing was left va­cant fol­low­ing the re­moval of the Cou­va West Sec­ondary School.

What ren­o­va­tions were made to ac­com­mo­date such a pro­gramme? Is the en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to ther­a­peu­tic ac­tiv­i­ty or are we mov­ing these stu­dents in­to an­oth­er "school" set­ting where the em­pha­sis will be on re­me­di­al class­es? Are there coun­selling rooms and spaces to ex­plore artis­tic ex­pres­sions or sports?

What about se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments? Are we go­ing to have armed guards at the gate to po­lice these stu­dents since they are prone to dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour? A ther­a­peu­tic en­vi­ron­ment must be cre­at­ed in or­der for such a pro­gramme to suc­ceed. Are a few rooms in the va­cat­ed Cou­va West Sec­ondary School ide­al for this?

Al­so what about the staffing of this fa­cil­i­ty? It is re­port­ed that staff of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices will pro­vide guid­ance to these stu­dents and help them to un­der­stand self and make bet­ter choic­es in life.

Men­tion was al­so made of trained psy­chol­o­gists and coun­sel­lors. Are these the same re­sources that are present­ly over­whelmed by the share num­ber of stu­dents and schools that have to be ser­viced on a dai­ly ba­sis and who are al­ready burnt out and los­ing their mo­ti­va­tion to work? What then would be the qual­i­ty of their in­ter­ven­tions with these spe­cial stu­dents?

We must be cau­tioned that suc­cess­ful re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of any kind re­quires a 90 per cent will­ing­ness on the part of the par­tic­i­pant. Has any as­sess­ment been done on these stu­dents to de­ter­mine their readi­ness for such a pro­gramme, or are we hop­ing that they de­vel­op this as they go along?

We must be re­mind­ed that the rea­son these stu­dents are in this predica­ment in the first place is due to their strug­gle with school or what school rep­re­sents to them. How would they re­spond? The Min­is­ter ex­pressed that he an­tic­i­pates no re­sis­tance to the pro­gramme, how­ev­er, one must be cog­nisant of pas­sive re­sis­tance and the abil­i­ty of un­mo­ti­vat­ed peo­ple to ride out the du­ra­tion of the pro­gramme with­out any change in their dis­po­si­tion.

There is no men­tion of parental in­volve­ment in the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion process and this is cause for con­cern. Are we in­tend­ing to work with these stu­dents dur­ing the day and send them to an un­treat­ed home en­vi­ron­ment that may have con­tributed to their delin­quen­cy in the first place. This is like spin­ning top in mud. Fam­i­lies must play an in­te­gral part of the restora­tion of these stu­dents and not sim­ply to en­sure that their chil­dren at­tend the pro­gramme.

I see this as a step in the right di­rec­tion and pos­si­bly a shaky start to the most re­quired Psy­choso­cial As­sess­ment Cen­tre. How­ev­er, not try­ing to be pes­simistic, but we run the risk of do­ing more harm than good if this pro­gramme is not prop­er­ly or­gan­ised and de­liv­ered in a sci­en­tif­ic man­ner that is strict­ly mon­i­tored and eval­u­at­ed.

Let's do it right the first time.

Garvin Cole