Fol­low­ing an­oth­er vi­o­lent al­ter­ca­tion at Moru­ga Sec­ondary School, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the po­lice are be­ing called on to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly.

On Wednes­day, videos be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia of a vi­o­lent al­ter­ca­tion among a group of fe­male stu­dents. They were punch­ing, kick­ing, and throw­ing chairs at one an­oth­er dur­ing a heat­ed fight in a class­room.

This fight fol­lows an­oth­er in­ci­dent on Jan­u­ary 17 in­volv­ing a male stu­dent and a male teacher in the school’s au­di­to­ri­um.

Fear­ing for her son’s safe­ty, Bev­er­ly Bris­tol, a par­ent, called for dras­tic ac­tion even if it meant hav­ing a po­lice and/or army pres­ence on the school com­pound. Bris­tol said her son did not at­tend school on Wednes­day be­cause he was not feel­ing well. How­ev­er, every day be­fore he leaves home for school, she anoints him with oil and prays for his safe re­turn.

Bris­tol said she raised her chil­dren with the un­der­stand­ing that vi­o­lence is un­ac­cept­able but that many par­ents are fail­ing in their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“If you see those girls fight­ing yes­ter­day, I’m ashamed as a woman. So what are the moth­ers say­ing?” she asked.

The frus­trat­ed moth­er said she was con­sid­er­ing trans­fer­ring her son to an­oth­er school.

“We have to get some­thing done. Row­ley has been sit­ting on Moru­ga Com­pos­ite for too long. This has been go­ing on in Moru­ga for years,” she said.

Mean­while, Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin called for im­me­di­ate and de­ci­sive ac­tion.

“Our schools should be places of learn­ing, growth, and safe­ty, not bat­tle­fields,” she said in a press state­ment in which she urged the au­thor­i­ties to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion to ad­dress the prob­lem and pro­vide sup­port and re­sources to stu­dents and teach­ers.

De­scrib­ing the lack of prop­er sys­tems to pre­vent and man­age school vi­o­lence as alarm­ing, Ben­jamin said, “We must work to­geth­er to im­ple­ment ef­fec­tive so­lu­tions that will help our chil­dren re­solve con­flicts in peace­ful ways while al­so en­sur­ing our teach­ers have the sup­port they need to main­tain or­der and safe­ty in the class­room.”

Com­ment­ing on the fight on Wednes­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Acts of in­dis­ci­pline at schools, in­clud­ing fight­ing, are rou­tine­ly dealt with ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of the Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix.”

Po­lice are ex­pect­ed to com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fight be­tween a teacher and a stu­dent at the school by the end of this week. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice South/Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar said the file will then be sub­mit­ted to the le­gal team for in­struc­tions on pro­ceed­ing with charges. He dis­missed a so­cial me­dia re­port that the teacher had died.

Mys­tar said po­lice of­fi­cers have col­lect­ed the med­ical re­ports, and con­duct­ed sev­er­al in­ter­views, but one state­ment is still out­stand­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tors have in­ter­viewed the teacher and the 16-year-old stu­dent, as well as eye­wit­ness­es, and record­ed state­ments.

Videos up­loaded to so­cial me­dia showed a male teacher and stu­dent trad­ing blows and both end­ing up on the floor. Stu­dents and staff mem­bers made sev­er­al at­tempts to stop the fight. In one of the videos, the stu­dent com­plained that the teacher cuffed him on his face, and he was not “tak­ing that.”

An­oth­er video showed the teacher bleed­ing from his nose with a bruised cheek and lip. Both sought med­ical at­ten­tion, and the stu­dent was sus­pend­ed.