Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has warned pri­ma­ry school stu­dents that get­ting in­to trou­ble at a young age can have last­ing con­se­quences on their fu­ture, in­clud­ing missed job op­por­tu­ni­ties, dif­fi­cul­ty pur­su­ing high­er ed­u­ca­tion, and trou­ble trav­el­ling abroad.

Beck­les used her ad­dress at the San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day to con­front the is­sue of school vi­o­lence. She ref­er­enced the re­cent beat­ing of a 15-year-old Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent in Cou­va, which led to five sec­ondary school girls be­ing charged with as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm.

“How many of you are aware of that?” she asked the stu­dents, not­ing that some seemed un­fa­mil­iar with the in­ci­dent.

“That means some of you are not read­ing news­pa­pers or watch­ing tele­vi­sion.”

Beck­les went on to ex­plain the le­gal and per­son­al con­se­quences of crim­i­nal charges.

“How many of you know that if you get con­vict­ed, you will have a po­lice record? If you have a po­lice record, you’re not go­ing to be able to get a job as a po­lice, a fire of­fi­cer, to get in­to the pub­lic ser­vice, or even if you want to go to uni­ver­si­ty,” she said.

She asked the stu­dents to re­flect se­ri­ous­ly on the paths they in­tend to take.

“How many of you have ever wit­nessed what a prison looks like?” she asked. On­ly one stu­dent raised their hand. Beck­les then asked: “How many of you want to end up be­hind bars?”

She re­mind­ed them that once in the sys­tem, it be­comes very dif­fi­cult and ex­pen­sive to get out, and “lawyers are very ex­pen­sive.”

Beck­les said she’d seen many such cas­es in her time as a lawyer.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ac­knowl­edged the pres­sure chil­dren face from peers and so­cial me­dia plat­forms like Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram.

“Some of you don’t know how to say no,” she said to the stu­dents, “but your par­ents don’t want to get that phone call say­ing you’re at a po­lice sta­tion for fight­ing, for hav­ing a weapon, or for hit­ting a teacher.”

She en­cour­aged the chil­dren to stay fo­cused on their dreams and am­bi­tions and asked how many of them want­ed to be­come doc­tors, lawyers, en­gi­neers, sol­diers, nurs­es, or ac­tors. She re­mind­ed them that all those pro­fes­sions re­quire a clean record and dis­ci­pline.

“You want your teach­ers to be able to say you were a good stu­dent,” she said. “That’s what will help you when you want a rec­om­men­da­tion or a job.”