Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to school vi­o­lence, de­clar­ing that stu­dents caught as­sault­ing oth­er stu­dents, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals will be ex­pelled.

Par­ents of these stu­dents and par­ents tak­ing mat­ters in­to their own hands, us­ing threats or vi­o­lence, would have to face the full brunt of the law, the Prime Min­is­ter re­vealed.

Her an­nounce­ment fol­lows the lat­est re­port­ed school fight that left one fe­male Form 5 stu­dent of the South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary School hos­pi­talised, af­ter be­ing vi­cious­ly at­tacked by three oth­er stu­dents.

The record­ed at­tack has been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia. The three stu­dents in­volved are fac­ing sus­pen­sion.

Dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing held at Red House, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she’s fed up of the dai­ly dose of school vi­o­lence and an­nounced that ef­forts must be put in place to pro­tect oth­er stu­dents from the few who are vi­o­lent.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Go­ing for­ward, we will treat every oc­cur­rence of as­sault or bat­tery as an ex­pellable of­fence in schools and an ar­restable of­fence to put be­fore the courts. I want par­ents and stu­dents to lis­ten very care­ful­ly, if your child as­saults or bat­ters an­oth­er child, they will be ex­pelled and will face the full brunt of the law. They will be ar­rest­ed.

“All acts of school vi­o­lence must now be re­ferred to the po­lice for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions. Par­ents need to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour. If they can’t train them to prop­er­ly be­have in school, then let them stay home and then we will have to look for spaces to prop­er­ly nur­ture them and coun­sel them.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said even par­ents will not be spared.

“If any par­ent or stu­dent as­saults or threat­ens a prin­ci­pal or a teacher that child will be ex­pelled. We are fed up see­ing our prin­ci­pals and teach­ers abused and threat­ened by both stu­dents and the par­ents of some stu­dents. We will en­force ex­pul­sion rules to the max­i­mum.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there will al­so be a clamp down on those who record and share footage of school vi­o­lence.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, all stu­dents caught in videos cheer­ing and clap­ping, egging on the vi­o­lence will be sus­pend­ed be­cause they are al­so par­tic­i­pants. I’m urg­ing all prin­ci­pals, teach­ers and stu­dents to make re­ports to the po­lice and for­ward the re­ports to your MPs (Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment) if you see no ac­tion be­ing tak­en,” she added.

While The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is in sup­port of poli­cies to curb in­dis­ci­pline, its pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin is al­so ques­tion­ing why pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures were not con­sid­ered.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Lum Kin said school vi­o­lence has to be looked at on a case-by-case ba­sis.

He said, “At this time, we would wel­come any ini­tia­tive or any pol­i­cy that will curb vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline in the schools. But, we are al­so won­der­ing if there is go­ing to be any in­ter­ven­tion be­fore the stu­dents reach to that point. And so, it is a con­ver­sa­tion that we need to have and have all of the con­text by which that de­ci­sion has been made. One of the things we are con­cerned about is if the stu­dents are ex­pelled or there is an ex­pul­sion of stu­dents in the school, what will hap­pen to those stu­dents?”

Asked if he be­lieves im­me­di­ate ex­pul­sion is too harsh, he added, “Each sit­u­a­tion has to be looked at on a case-by-case ba­sis. We can’t have one brush for all sit­u­a­tions. There may be in­stances where harsh treat­ment has to take place. But we’re al­so quite cu­ri­ous as to what about in­ter­ven­tion or pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures. What is sug­gest­ed could be a short term, but what about the long term in­to bring­ing chil­dren in­to con­for­mi­ty to be­hav­iour that is ac­cept­able in so­ci­ety? And so, we would al­so want to hear from the Gov­ern­ment as to what is re­al­ly the plan and how they plan to rule it out, and what would be the ap­pli­ca­tions of these var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions as well,” Lum Kin said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly: A ret­ro­grade step

In a re­sponse last night, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly called the move a ret­ro­grade step.

"Acts of school vi­o­lence are rou­tine­ly re­port­ed to the TTPS, and are al­ready pun­ish­able by ex­pul­sion. The Prime Min­is­ter has added noth­ing new or help­ful to the con­ver­sa­tion," Gads­by-Dol­ly said in a state­ment last night.

"Since 2022, un­der the PNM, sev­er­al ini­tia­tives, work­ing in tan­dem, proved suc­cess­ful at re­duc­ing the lev­el of vi­o­lence in schools when stu­dents re­turned phys­i­cal­ly from the COVID-19 lock­down. This was a work in progress, which in­clud­ed re­sourc­ing schools with the high­est lev­els of vi­o­lence with ded­i­cat­ed so­cial work­ers and guid­ance coun­cil­lors, in­volv­ing com­mu­ni­ty po­lice in schools to as­sist with dis­ci­pline, reg­u­lar men­tor­ship ses­sions, cur­ricu­lum in­ter­ven­tions, the in­cor­po­ra­tion of Cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion ac­tiv­i­ties, teacher train­ing, and in­tro­duc­tion of restora­tive prac­tices."

She said a part­ner­ship with SER­VOL was es­tab­lished to ab­sorb the ex­pelled stu­dents, or those at risk of ex­pul­sion, so they would have a chance at re­form in a dif­fer­ent en­vi­ron­ment.

"The Prime Min­is­ter seems to be es­pous­ing a ret­ro­grade pol­i­cy - sim­ply lock up mis­be­hav­ing young peo­ple. While this may feel like im­me­di­ate jus­tice, what is the next step for these youth, who will now have crim­i­nal records? Al­so rel­e­vant is the fact that there is a se­ri­ous eth­nic and ge­o­graph­ic bias as­so­ci­at­ed with school vi­o­lence. What of those im­pli­ca­tions? Has the Prime Min­is­ter con­sid­ered this?"

Point­ing out that it had been re­port­ed that Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath had giv­en or­ders to stop the Restora­tive Prac­tices Ini­tia­tive in schools, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, "The min­is­ter should con­firm whether this al­le­ga­tion is true, and whether trained pro­fes­sion­als who were help­ing stu­dents with anger man­age­ment and con­flict res­o­lu­tion are, in fact, now fac­ing ter­mi­na­tion.

"The Prime Min­is­ter seems to have been em­bar­rassed in­to mak­ing knee-jerk state­ments when faced with the fact that the school vi­o­lence prob­lem in Trinidad and To­ba­go tran­scends min­is­ters, prime min­is­ters or po­lit­i­cal par­ties. This is a coun­try prob­lem, and if the Gov­ern­ment that she leads had not stopped the youth pro­grammes like MI­LAT and MY­PART, the Prime Min­is­ter would have been able to make a much more rea­soned in­ter­ven­tion, like the ex­pan­sion of these pro­grammes to ac­com­mo­date those who are ex­pelled. Much more is ex­pect­ed from a Prime Min­is­ter who served as a for­mer Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion. Lock­ing up young peo­ple can­not be your plan."