RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has re­ceived a pre­lim­i­nary re­port on the in­ci­dent in which a fe­male Form Two El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary School stu­dent was stabbed dur­ing a fight.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so told that a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the in­ci­dent.

Po­lice said a fight broke out among sev­er­al stu­dents dur­ing the lunch pe­ri­od, dur­ing which time a school­girl was stabbed in the leg. It is al­leged that a kitchen knife was used in the at­tack.

The al­leged at­tack­er is said to be a fe­male Form Three stu­dent.

The in­jured girl was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, where she was treat­ed and ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to reach the moth­er of the al­leged at­tack­er, who was al­leged to have been the vic­tim of sev­er­al bul­ly­ing acts.

In a Face­book post al­leged­ly post­ed by the at­tack­er’s moth­er, she claimed her daugh­ter was a vic­tim of bul­ly­ing and had been at­tacked by oth­er stu­dents.

“They burn her hair and try to light her on fire, the school didn’t even call. To this day, they nev­er asked to see the dam­age or asked mom how she deal­ing with it, how does she feel. The boys and their girl­friends walk around dai­ly among her, no pun­ish­ment made,” the moth­er wrote.

“Threats were made, I called the school, I said ‘miss, they are com­ing back for her’. The day be­fore she say ‘mom is too much of them please, I just want a trans­fer, I’m not feel­ing safe’. At present, threats still be­ing made that they will kill her if she re­turns and her cousin they say is next.”

The woman fur­ther claimed that school of­fi­cials failed to act on the com­plaint.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the is­sue, Gads­by-Dol­ly said: “I re­ceived a pre­lim­i­nary re­port on the mat­ter. I am await­ing a de­tailed re­port, in­clud­ing a dis­ci­pli­nary his­to­ry of both stu­dents, to have a clear un­der­stand­ing of the con­text of the sit­u­a­tion.”

She added, “Hav­ing a weapon and us­ing it is a se­ri­ous of­fence that has been re­port­ed to the po­lice.”

Po­lice of­fi­cers are ask­ing par­ents to en­cour­age their chil­dren who at­tend the school to give vi­tal in­for­ma­tion to in­ves­ti­ga­tors and ac­com­pa­ny them to the sta­tion and or the school prin­ci­pal’s of­fice to do so.