A pro­gramme in­tend­ed to elim­i­nate school vi­o­lence was launched yes­ter­day at El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary School, Tu­na­puna.

The Peer Me­di­a­tion Pro­gramme, spear­head­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, em­pow­ers stu­dents to play a piv­otal role in re­solv­ing con­flicts with­in their schools and com­mu­ni­ties.

Recog­nis­ing that young peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate dif­fer­ent­ly—of­ten us­ing lan­guage and ex­pres­sions that res­onate more ef­fec­tive­ly among peers than adult in­ter­ven­tions—the ini­tia­tive fo­cus­es on stu­dent-led me­di­a­tion.

Speak­ing at the launch, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of peer in­volve­ment in de-es­ca­lat­ing con­flicts.

She high­light­ed a surge in school vi­o­lence fol­low­ing the re­turn to phys­i­cal class­rooms in 2022, af­ter the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“When emo­tions run high, some­one needs to step in and in­ter­vene. Young peo­ple can of­ten reach their friends in ways adults can­not,” she ex­plained. “Fights be­came a dai­ly oc­cur­rence, with so­cial me­dia flood­ed with videos of vi­o­lent al­ter­ca­tions. Our phones were filled with those clips; it was the news every­one shared.”

In re­sponse, the min­istry im­ple­ment­ed restora­tive prac­tices, de­ploy­ing school so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, and restora­tive prac­ti­tion­ers to ad­dress the is­sue.

Build­ing on this suc­cess, the Peer Me­di­a­tion Pro­gramme trains stu­dents to me­di­ate dis­putes and fos­ter a cul­ture of peace.

Dur­ing the event, Gads­by-Dol­ly toured the school’s new­ly opened me­di­a­tion room, equipped with tools and ac­tiv­i­ties to help stu­dents man­age their emo­tions and be­hav­iour.

Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices man­ag­er, Dr Ayin­ka Nurse-Car­ring­ton, un­der­scored the pro­gramme’s ev­i­dence-based foun­da­tion.

“Ex­ten­sive re­search shows restora­tive prac­tices re­duce sus­pen­sions, ex­pul­sions, and dis­ci­pli­nary re­fer­rals while cre­at­ing a more re­spect­ful, sup­port­ive learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment. Pre­lim­i­nary lo­cal da­ta al­ready re­flects de­clin­ing sus­pen­sion rates, align­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al out­comes’, she said.

Dr Nurse-Car­ring­ton called on par­ents, teach­ers, and stake­hold­ers to sup­port the ini­tia­tive, stress­ing that in­vest­ments in con­flict res­o­lu­tion, emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, and restora­tive prac­tices will shape a gen­er­a­tion that is both aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly ca­pa­ble and so­cial­ly re­spon­si­ble.

Prin­ci­pal Ann-Marie Per­sads­ingh praised the pro­gramme’s ear­ly im­pact at El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary, not­ing it is al­ready yield­ing pos­i­tive re­sults among stu­dents.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion plans to ex­pand the pro­gramme to schools na­tion­wide.—Ot­to Car­ring­ton