Camille Clarke

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia says his min­istry is mov­ing to im­ple­ment mea­sures list­ed in an An­ti-Bul­ly­ing Re­port to curb the re­cent spate of school vi­o­lence.

Gar­cia was speak­ing in the wake of sev­er­al videos of school bul­ly­ing be­ing post­ed on so­cial me­dia.

View­ers on the so­cial sites have ex­pressed out­rage at the footage as one of the lat­est in­ci­dents which shows a Form Three stu­dent be­ing bul­lied, beat­en and kicked by a Form Five stu­dent at a Williamsville Sec­ondary School.

In a fol­low-up video re­lat­ed to the same in­ci­dent, the vic­tim's rel­a­tives are at­tacked by the same bul­ly and oth­ers in the pres­ence of teach­ers and par­ents.

These two videos have over 100,000 views and 2,200 shares.

In an­oth­er video at an­oth­er school, a teacher is seen al­leged­ly curs­ing a group of stu­dents for caus­ing mis­chief by emp­ty­ing the fire ex­tin­guish­ers and play­ing cards.

And in a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent at a school in Aranguez, an­oth­er stu­dent's head was shaved by bul­lies while he wait­ed for the school shut­tle to go home.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Gar­cia said: "We can't al­low this to con­tin­ue and it is a con­cern to us and the min­istry. Every ef­fort will be made to stop this which has crept in­to our ed­u­ca­tion.

He said every ef­fort is be­ing made to im­ple­ment the An­ti-Bul­ly­ing Re­port which was de­vel­oped by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

"Ac­tion will be tak­en ur­gent­ly to im­ple­ment this re­port," he said.

First vice pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) An­to­nia De Fre­itas said the min­istry need­ed to sup­port schools to im­ple­ment a dis­ci­pline ma­trix.

"We have a sit­u­a­tion where there are some stu­dents who are out of hand and these stu­dents make choic­es to take cer­tain cours­es of ac­tion," she said.

De Fre­itas said in some in­stances there is a full com­ple­ment of safe­ty of­fi­cers and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers but some con­tracts are due to ex­pire soon.

"We need a sup­port to cre­ate a dis­ci­pline ma­trix in the school and be em­pow­ered to fol­low through," she said.

She said the ac­tions of some stu­dents war­rant sus­pen­sion and if con­tin­ued with­out con­se­quences they be­come em­pow­ered.

"They could hire more se­cu­ri­ty and man­pow­er and train more of­fi­cers so they are able to do and dis­ci­pline. In some schools the scan­ners are not work­ing and it can add up to a sit­u­a­tion. It's not like they are not try­ing but don't have sup­port from the State," she said.

De Fre­itas said cer­tain struc­tures should be in place and for the par­ents as well. "Some par­ents can't cope with the stu­dents and that's an­oth­er re­al­i­ty. They need in­ter­ven­tion and re­quire sup­port and ad­just­ment," she said.

Stop the Bul­ly­ing founder Lana Boodoo-Ma­haraj said school bul­ly­ing is not be­ing dealt with by peo­ple and act as though it's not an is­sue.

"As a par­ent who has faced this is­sue with both my sons, I beg for those in au­thor­i­ty to do some­thing now be­fore it's too late. It's es­ca­lat­ing, get­ting more vi­o­lent. How many more of our chil­dren are we go­ing to lose due to bul­ly­ing?" she asked.

She said all stake­hold­ers and the min­istry need­ed to find some kind of so­lu­tions to deal with bul­ly­ing and vi­o­lence.

"The vic­tims of bul­ly­ing are the ones who suf­fer the most. The trau­ma, the hu­mil­i­a­tion, the bro­ken bones.

How much longer must we al­low bul­lies to do to our chil­dren be­fore we as par­ents and guardians stand up and say no more?" she ques­tioned.