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Sunday, June 22, 2025

Ministers visit SEPoSS after brutal student attack

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
15 days ago
20250607
Minister of Education Dr Michael Dowlath and South East Port-of-Spain Secondary School principal Winston Samuel during a school tour yesterday.

Minister of Education Dr Michael Dowlath and South East Port-of-Spain Secondary School principal Winston Samuel during a school tour yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Three days af­ter a 17-year-old South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary School (SE­PoSS) stu­dent was bru­tal­ly at­tacked in a bath­room by class­mates and se­vere­ly in­jured, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der yes­ter­day vis­it­ed the school in a bid to re­as­sure its ad­min­is­tra­tion of their sup­port.

The min­is­te­r­i­al team ar­rived around 1.40 pm and spent just over an hour speak­ing with prin­ci­pal Win­ston Samuel and teach­ers about is­sues af­fect­ing the school.

Fol­low­ing the cor­dial dis­cus­sions, Dowlath was treat­ed to a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty while Alexan­der left.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Dowlath said school op­er­a­tions would re­sume as nor­mal on Mon­day, as class­es had been sus­pend­ed on Thurs­day and yes­ter­day to fa­cil­i­tate pri­vate can­di­dates writ­ing the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am. He said this was an ad­vance arrange­ment and had noth­ing to do with the at­tack on the Form Four stu­dent.

The vic­tim of the beat­ing by three class­mates lives at Her­mitage Road, Gon­za­les, Bel­mont. Re­ports in­di­cate the girl had gone to the fe­male wash­room around 12.40 pm on Tues­day when she was “jumped” by the at­tack­ers, who were known to her.

In the vi­ral record­ing, the at­tack­ers were seen beat­ing the girl, punch­ing her about the body and throw­ing her to the floor, fol­low­ing which one of them kicked her vi­cious­ly in the face as she lay curled on the floor.

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the vic­tim suf­fered a frac­tured nose, bro­ken tooth, blood clots in the eyes and oth­er in­juries. The stu­dent was still hos­pi­talised in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar read the ri­ot act, warn­ing that stu­dents caught as­sault­ing oth­er stu­dents, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals will be ex­pelled. She al­so warned par­ents of undis­ci­plined stu­dents and par­ents against tak­ing mat­ters in­to their own hands, us­ing threats or vi­o­lence, say­ing they will have to face the full brunt of the law.

The PM em­pha­sised that schools were se­cure en­vi­ron­ments for learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment—and should not be­come spaces of fear, dis­rup­tion, or vi­o­lence.

Dowlath re­peat­ed this yes­ter­day, as he said his min­istry would be “tak­ing a strict ap­proach to school vi­o­lence.”

Pressed about yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, he said the min­is­ters had gone there, “in a show of sup­port for both the ad­min­is­tra­tion and teach­ers at the school as we move for­ward.”

He said the staff had been wel­com­ing and ex­pressed con­cerns about is­sues af­fect­ing the school.

Dowlath round­ly con­demned Wednes­day’s in­ci­dent, say­ing, “Acts of vi­o­lence among stu­dents are en­tire­ly un­ac­cept­able. Schools must re­main safe spaces for all. Any be­hav­iour that threat­ens this en­vi­ron­ment will be treat­ed with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness.”

Dur­ing a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty, Dowlath got a first-hand look at the op­er­a­tional ar­eas and heard of the chal­lenges the staff and stu­dents faced dai­ly. He en­cour­aged teach­ers to pro­vide di­rect feed­back to both min­istries to shape a sus­tain­able way for­ward.

In a sub­se­quent re­lease, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) said it had joined with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty to ad­dress stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline in schools, which re­mained a mat­ter of sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al con­cern.

The MOE said it is cur­rent­ly un­der­tak­ing a com­pre­hen­sive and ur­gent re­view of the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct and the Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix in di­rect re­sponse to the es­ca­lat­ing lev­els of stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline.

“The min­istry recog­nis­es that the cur­rent frame­works must evolve to ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress the re­al­i­ties of mod­ern-day in­frac­tions, in­clud­ing se­ri­ous breach­es of con­duct and vi­o­lence in schools. As such, greater clar­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy, and con­se­quences will be em­bed­ded in­to the re­vised dis­ci­pli­nary struc­ture to en­sure it is firm, fair, and fit for pur­pose,” it said.

“The goal is to es­tab­lish a sys­tem of dis­ci­pline that not on­ly de­ters mis­con­duct but al­so re­in­forces ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­spect across all ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.”

The min­istry ap­pealed to par­ents and guardians to sup­port the ef­forts.


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