JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The 50 schools iden­ti­fied by po­lice and the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry for de­ploy­ment of the School Ori­ent­ed Po­lice Unit (SOPU) are not fi­nal, DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin, head of the unit, has said.

He spoke af­ter a so­cial me­dia post showed a teacher and stu­dent at Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School en­gaged in a fight yes­ter­day.

“I am cer­tain it will get some at­ten­tion from the TTPS. It is not on the list it­self; nev­er­the­less, it is one of those ar­eas that we be­lieve is of great con­cern.

“The Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent North­ern North, Ms. May­nard Wil­son, would have high­light­ed that this school is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern. So even though it’s not on the list, we will be pay­ing a lot of at­ten­tion to it,” Ben­jamin said.

SOPU was formed af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed her cam­paign promise in Ju­ly to place po­lice in schools to ad­dress school vi­o­lence. The of­fi­cers, strength­ened by 25 com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing of­fi­cers, are sta­tioned at 50 high-risk sec­ondary schools with two of­fi­cers per school, one armed. They al­so pa­trol ten pri­ma­ry schools.

Ben­jamin said po­lice of­fi­cers in schools can in­ter­vene if an of­fence oc­curs.

“Once an of­fence is tak­ing place in the pres­ence of an of­fi­cer, he can deal with it. If there is a fight and a re­port is made, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion will fol­low. If we be­lieve a charge can be made, it will be made. The po­lice can and will deal with these in­ci­dents,” he said.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry ex­pressed deep con­cern over the video show­ing stu­dents at­tempt­ing to part the teacher and stu­dent, who were tug­ging each oth­er’s hair.

“The Min­istry con­demns such be­hav­iour, which un­der­mines the val­ues of re­spect, dis­ci­pline, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem seeks to in­stil in all learn­ers. A full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent has been ini­ti­at­ed. Ap­pro­pri­ate dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en against those found cul­pa­ble,” the state­ment said.

The Min­istry added that the in­tegri­ty of the learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment re­mains para­mount and reaf­firmed its ze­ro-tol­er­ance stance on vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline, not­ing it will con­tin­ue work­ing with school ad­min­is­tra­tions, par­ents, and law en­force­ment to en­sure safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments for every child.

For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, in a Face­book post, called on the Min­istry to clar­i­fy the cir­cum­stances of the in­ci­dent.

“In a cli­mate where armed po­lice have been placed in schools, the ques­tion aris­es: what cri­te­ria were used to de­ter­mine which schools the TTPS were sent to? Why was this school left out? Are po­lice now go­ing to be placed at this school? Cit­i­zens await the Min­istry’s an­swers,” she wrote.

Mean­while, Wal­ter Stew­art, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for Par­ents and Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, said the in­ci­dent is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing as it oc­curred on the third day of the new po­lice de­ploy­ment pro­gramme.

“While we do not have all the facts, we strong­ly rec­om­mend a swift, thor­ough, and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine what led to this con­fronta­tion be­tween stu­dent and teacher,” he said.

Stew­art added that the as­so­ci­a­tion has con­cerns about the cur­rent SOPU school list and has be­gun re­view­ing it to rec­om­mend ad­di­tion­al schools, not­ing that Ari­ma North Sec­ondary is con­sid­ered at-risk and should be in­clud­ed.

This in­ci­dent fol­lows a re­port in Moru­ga where a teacher was as­sault­ed by a stu­dent. That case is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The stu­dent re­port­ed­ly claimed he was slapped and was seen curs­ing and re­mov­ing his school shirt.