The Ministry of Education is set to meet with National Security and Youth Development Ministries next week to discuss recent school fights.
Since the reopening of physical schools for secondary school students earlier this year, several videos showing fights between schoolmates surfaced on social media.
Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby Dolly said a statistical report was compiled and sent to the ministries for recommendations to deal with the issue.
National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said the main focus is always rehabilitation and restoration to help these students channel their energies into something productive.
“In all cases, the focus must always be on giving them an opportunity to recover from that with the proper counselling and management and a programme,” he said.
He said there are circumstances when enforcing the law is necessary.
“There are cases where of course, they will have to be made to understand that there are serious consequences for serious, violent, destructive behaviours,” Hinds said.
However, president of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Antonia Tekah-DeFreitas said before providing recommendations an assessment on what type of intervention is needed should have been done.
“Bringing somebody to do a workshop with students in a classroom, especially if those students were not involved, how meaningful is that in this current climate,” she said.
In the videos, teenage girls and boys were seen fighting both in the classroom and in the streets.
Some videos show parents’ and even teachers’ getting involved in the fights, Tekah-DeFreitas asked her members not to do so.
“I will say that the Minister of Education has full responsibility for ensuring student safety and safety of teaching and non-teaching staff… the issue of teachers jumping into part fights is a natural tendency for adults to try to part fights or students,” she said.
The TTUTA president said they have found that schools have cut down the number of security officers in recent times, which could be a reason for the recent violence.
But she said these things should have been considered before the reopening and said in the past TTUTA has made recommendations for a Police Post outside high-risk schools to deal with the violence outside the compounds.
Administrator of the T&T Secondary Schools Parent Support Group Rachiel Ramsamooj said some teachers are afraid of some pupils but students and parents share the same fear as well.
Ramsamooj said some have even pulled their children out of the physical environment altogether.
“You cannot allow these students to make others feel unsafe in schools, it’s a handful of pupils and it’s not fair... We need to go back to where the environment for everyone can be safe,” she said.
She said based on the information her group receives, more fights take place at Government schools and intervention from the Government should have started already. But says those in authority cannot do it alone.
“Never say not my child that’s the first thing parents do but if you go through their phones you will see what there have been up to,” she said.
