Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Polti­cal Re­porter

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is de­vel­op­ing a school safe­ty au­dit to iden­ti­fy “red-flag in­sti­tu­tions” and im­ple­ment deeply tai­lored in­ter­ven­tions to deal with stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline, af­ter 21,661 sec­ondary school stu­dents were sus­pend­ed in the pe­ri­od 2022–2025.

The plan was de­tailed by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment de­bate on $3.2 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing for the 2025 Bud­get. The fund­ing is for 28 di­vi­sions, in­clud­ing Ed­u­ca­tion, where Dowlath not­ed the new Gov­ern­ment is deal­ing with is­sues left by the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion as it re­tools the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem for bet­ter op­er­a­tion.

Dowlath said be­tween 2022 and 2025, sec­ondary school sus­pen­sions rose by near­ly 87 per cent, from 5,167 in 2022–2023 to 9,676 in 2024–2025.

“In to­tal, there were 21,661 sus­pen­sions over the three-year pe­ri­od. These aren’t just num­bers, this is a sig­nal of dis­tress in our schools! How­ev­er, even as we take firm ac­tion to pre­serve or­der and safe­ty, we’re equal­ly com­mit­ted to safe­guard­ing the right to ed­u­ca­tion. Every child, in­clud­ing those who face ex­pul­sion due to their ac­tions, de­serves an ed­u­ca­tion.”

He said the min­istry is en­gaged in a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the pro­grammes and poli­cies con­cern­ing the be­hav­iour of stu­dents, fol­low­ing which a de­tailed strat­e­gy will be de­vel­oped, guid­ed by the prin­ci­ple of bal­ance in main­tain­ing safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

Mak­ing a link be­tween the dis­ci­pli­nary prob­lem and the mas­sive staffing short­ages cre­at­ed by the PNM, he said, “We’ve al­so en­gaged the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to ac­cel­er­ate the ap­point­ment of key per­son­nel and ad­dress the mas­sive lead­er­ship gaps. Dis­ci­pline doesn’t start with pun­ish­ment, it starts with pres­ence, struc­ture and re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship.”

In­tent on fill­ing staffing voids that were left be­hind in schools, Dowlath added, “We’re de­vel­op­ing a na­tion­al school safe­ty au­dit to iden­ti­fy red-flag in­sti­tu­tions and de­ploy tai­lored in­ter­ven­tions. We’re re­view­ing the over­all school code of con­duct and dis­ci­pline mea­sures. We’re em­bed­ding so­cial-emo­tion­al learn­ing and an­ti-bul­ly­ing ed­u­ca­tion across all school lev­els, be­cause emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence must be taught as de­lib­er­ate­ly as math­e­mat­ics.”

He said the min­istry had re­quest­ed $37 mil­lion for the pay­ment of sec­ondary school teacher salaries.

“Up­on as­sum­ing of­fice, what I found wasn’t just a staffing short­fall, it was a lead­er­ship cri­sis in our schools! We found va­can­cies at every lev­el.”

Dowlath de­tailed:

At sec­ondary school lev­el:

• 625 va­can­cies at ad­min­is­tra­tive lev­el; 83 of 125 prin­ci­pal po­si­tions va­cant—two-thirds of schools op­er­at­ing with­out prop­er lead­er­ship

• 59 of 144 vice prin­ci­pal po­si­tions va­cant

• 264 of 618 heads of de­part­ment po­si­tions va­cant

• 219 of 574 dean’s po­si­tions va­cant.

At pri­ma­ry school lev­el:

• 222 of 450 prin­ci­pal va­can­cies

• 64 of 110 vice prin­ci­pal posts va­can­cies

Dowlath added, “But a school with­out strong lead­er­ship is like a ship with­out a cap­tain and the for­mer gov­ern­ment left hun­dreds of them adrift. As a re­sult of this lead­er­ship cri­sis, stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline rears its ug­ly head. Acts of se­ri­ous vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing group fights that en­dan­ger the lives of stu­dents, can­not and will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

He said the min­istry is al­so ad­dress­ing the 279 EC­CE, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools ne­glect­ed by PNM. The Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme (VRP) was al­so ex­pand­ed for ur­gent re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works to en­sure that in Sep­tem­ber, schools will re­open in safe, san­i­tary and ful­ly func­tion­al con­di­tions.

Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $20 mil­lion to en­sure that 20,000 vul­ner­a­ble stu­dents con­tin­ue re­ceiv­ing text­book grants af­ter the PNM made no fi­nan­cial Bud­get 2024/2025 pro­vi­sion to con­tin­ue it.

The min­istry is al­so procur­ing 18,000 lap­tops—cost­ing $76 mil­lion—for in­com­ing Form One stu­dents. Spe­cial needs stu­dents—in­clud­ing the vi­su­al­ly and hear­ing im­paired.