Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A 15-year-old stu­dent has been as­sault­ed by a group of girls at Holy Faith Con­vent in Cou­va, prompt­ing a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a probe or­dered by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The in­ci­dent that took place yes­ter­day af­ter­noon sparked con­cern on so­cial me­dia, and the au­thor­i­ties are promis­ing swift ac­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has called for a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing the min­istry is work­ing close­ly with school of­fi­cials and rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to en­sure a thor­ough re­view and that ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion is tak­en.

“The min­istry un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns all forms of vi­o­lence with­in the school en­vi­ron­ment,” the re­lease stat­ed. “Such be­hav­iour will not be tol­er­at­ed un­der any cir­cum­stances.”

The po­lice launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter a group of girls stormed the Cou­va Holy Faith Con­vent com­pound and as­sault­ed the stu­dent. The Form Four stu­dent was re­port­ed­ly at­tacked around 3:10 pm by five girls she knew through so­cial me­dia. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the at­tack­ers at­tend var­i­ous sec­ondary schools in the Cou­va dis­trict.

They ap­proached the east­ern gate of the com­pound, dragged the stu­dent aside and be­gan beat­ing her, land­ing mul­ti­ple blows to her face and body be­fore flee­ing the scene on foot.

The vic­tim is re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment for her in­juries.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice South/Cen­tral, ACP Mys­tar, de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “a co­or­di­nat­ed act of vi­o­lence car­ried out on school grounds”.

“This was not a ran­dom al­ter­ca­tion,” he said. “The safe­ty of our chil­dren is non-ne­go­tiable, and those re­spon­si­ble will be held ac­count­able. Ar­rests will be made.”

Cou­va CID de­tec­tives are re­view­ing CCTV footage and pur­su­ing sev­er­al leads. Po­lice have urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the sus­pects’ iden­ti­ties or where­abouts to come for­ward.

The TTPS is work­ing with school of­fi­cials, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers to boost safe­ty at schools in the re­gion. Ad­di­tion­al pa­trols and se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ments will be car­ried out.

The as­sault comes amid on­go­ing con­cerns about vi­o­lence in schools. The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter con­firmed that two stu­dents have been ex­pelled for fight­ing so far this year. He said the min­istry ver­i­fied three ex­pul­sions in 2022, 14 in 2023, five in 2024, and two be­tween Jan­u­ary and April 2025.

While the min­istry does not keep cen­tralised records of re­ports made by prin­ci­pals to the po­lice, Dowlath said a memo ti­tled “Mea­sures to Deal with School Vi­o­lence – Ex­pul­sion” was is­sued in June 2022 to all pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school prin­ci­pals by the Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer.

“We re­mind the pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly young per­sons, that vi­o­lence is not the an­swer and can have life-al­ter­ing con­se­quences,” the po­lice said.