Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has re­vealed that none of the three stu­dents ex­pelled from the school sys­tem in the last aca­d­e­m­ic year (20222-23) have been en­rolled in the Mi­LAT pro­gramme for un­ruly young­sters.

The min­is­ter al­so re­vealed that the num­ber of stu­dents ex­pelled for this aca­d­e­m­ic year so far is three times that of last year’s fig­ure—mean­ing ex­pul­sions have been on the rise.

Speak­ing with re­porters yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the open­ing of the Ra­mai Trace SDMS Pri­ma­ry School in Debe, the min­is­ter said three stu­dents were ex­pelled dur­ing the last aca­d­e­m­ic year while ten have been ex­pelled so far in the cur­rent aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Al­lud­ing to the sev­er­al so­cial me­dia videos high­light­ing school vi­o­lence, she said this con­tributed to the in­crease in the ex­pul­sions. Asked if a change in pol­i­cy led to the rise in ex­pul­sions, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the pol­i­cy re­mains the same and is avail­able on the min­istry’s web­site.

“I’m sure you would have gone through it and you would have seen ex­pul­sion has been in the Ed­u­ca­tion Act for a long time. I am sure al­so many of you car­ried the sto­ries that would have shown some of the acts that would have led to the ex­pul­sions,” she said.

How­ev­er the min­is­ter said ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials were still work­ing with the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (Mi­LAT) pro­gramme to have un­ruly stu­dents en­rolled there, but so far none of the ex­pelled stu­dents have been en­list­ed in the pro­gramme.

“Once the stu­dent is ex­pelled we write to Mi­LAT, we write to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, we write to So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, so that has been done. Three stu­dents were ex­pelled last year, and so we would have writ­ten to them in­di­cat­ing that these stu­dents are out of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in terms of the schools, but we would like them to con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion at Mi­LAT. So the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment, I know has been work­ing with it to try to get them in­to the pro­gramme,” Gads­by-Dol­ly ex­plained.

She said the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment pro­vides coun­selling to the fam­i­ly. She said even be­fore the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment the min­istry has had in­ter­ac­tion with Ser­vol and Mi­LAT to ac­com­mo­date stu­dents who re­al­ly need that ex­tra lev­el of sup­port.

“It is not some­thing new, it is some­thing we just for­malise so we can en­sure that our stu­dents are tak­en care of,” she added.

But the min­is­ter said while stu­dents un­der the age of 16 must be en­rolled in Mi­LAT, af­ter they pass that age the onus would be on the par­ents to fol­low through with those arrange­ments.