Education Minister Anthony Garcia has asked for an in-depth report into a recent video which surfaced showing a young student being beaten by a gang of schoolgirls.
Garcia said the incidents of school violence had been on the decline and he was "extremely concerned" when he saw the video which surfaced on social media last month.
The video shows the girl being kicked about the body as she lay on the ground. In the video someone is heard shouting "allyuh go kill she" but the abuse continued with the girl being kicked about the head.
The students are from the El Dorado West Secondary School. Garcia said he met with the school's vice-principal and was informed that the students had been suspended.
But he said he had ordered "an in-depth investigation because what we have found is that in some cases where students are indisciplined it is because they have no parents around. They are looked after by an elder sibling or another relative. In some cases it may even be an uncle or grandparent."
Garcia said they had also found that in some schools female students attend classes as normal "but they shacked up living with somebody (male)."
He said clearly there were "troubled children in the school system. This is where the Student Support Services come in. They offer guidance and support."
He said different children have different circumstances and while in some cases parents were unemployed for "any number of reasons not necessarily the economic situation, this makes it harder."
Garcia said he had received "an interim report on the incident but I want a more in-depth report on the circumstances surrounding what happened."
He expects to have the report in hand soon. Garcia said he would also meet with the parents of the students involved.
A 2014 report on the incidence of school violence obtained by the T&T Guardian ranked the El Dorado West Secondary School 13th based on the number of incidents of violence perpetrated by students. The school had 39 incidents of violence from January 2014 to November 2014.
Garcia said that period was before he came into office. He said things had changed and the incidence of violence had been significantly reduced but he could provide no specific data for that specific school
CONTRACT WORKERS CRY OUT
There are reports that 250 contract employees of the Ministry of Education whose three-year contracts expired have been working on month-to-month contracts for the past 15 months.
Those affected are in the IT, Textbooks, Research, Evaluation, and Policy Departments of the Ministry of Education.
The workers claim they are not paid on time and among other things are not entitled to sick leave or gratuity.
They claim the kind of conditions they have had to work under are in violation of the Industrial Relations Act.
They say they have been informed that Cabinet Notes were prepared to be taken to Cabinet for their positions to be extended for an additional three-year contract but because of administrative problems the notes were never given to the minister.
Garcia said he was not aware of the situation and promised to "look into it."