CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les trad­ed sharp ac­cu­sa­tions over the use of po­lice in schools, fol­low­ing a pri­vate mo­tion in the Low­er House on Fri­day.

The mo­tion, brought by St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, a for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, fo­cused on the use of armed po­lice of­fi­cers in schools and trig­gered heat­ed de­bate on the Gov­ern­ment’s School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive.

In a state­ment af­ter the sit­ting on her so­cial me­dia pages, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of seek­ing to re­move po­lice pro­tec­tions from schools, say­ing her ad­min­is­tra­tion “stands firm­ly in de­fence of stu­dents and teach­ers who sim­ply want to at­tend school to learn and teach in a safe and sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment.”

She claimed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment had “wast­ed hours of par­lia­men­tary time to ar­gue for the re­moval of po­lice pro­tec­tions for our chil­dren from the na­tion’s schools,” adding that the par­ty had “no am­bi­tion to see our cit­i­zens ex­cel and thrive.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so launched a broad­er at­tack on the Op­po­si­tion, ac­cus­ing it of de­fend­ing “wrong­do­ing and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour” and be­ing “more com­fort­able with drug push­ers and gangs, along with some vi­o­lent par­ents and stu­dents ter­ror­is­ing our chil­dren and our teach­ers on a dai­ly ba­sis.”

She added that the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise stu­dent safe­ty, say­ing, “Your UNC gov­ern­ment loves your chil­dren. We will do every­thing pos­si­ble for them to thrive and be hap­py.”

In re­sponse, Beck­les dis­missed the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks as an at­tempt to de­flect from what she de­scribed as a fail­ing pol­i­cy, call­ing for an “ev­i­dence-based plan to re­duce school vi­o­lence.”

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day morn­ing, Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment “ex­pos­es to the na­tion her des­per­a­tion to de­flect from the abysmal fail­ure of the UNC’s poor­ly planned and hap­haz­ard­ly im­ple­ment­ed School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive.”

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the is­sue in Par­lia­ment, point­ing to a con­tri­bu­tion by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, which she de­scribed as “dis­ap­point­ing and un­der­whelm­ing,” and lack­ing “any sem­blance of a co­gent pol­i­cy.”

“The na­tion’s chil­dren de­serve far bet­ter than hot air in a plas­tic bag, rants on so­cial me­dia and vac­u­ous ram­blings in the Par­lia­ment,” Beck­les said.

She ar­gued that the ini­tia­tive lacked a clear frame­work, de­fined roles and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, and warned that a fo­cus on “ex­pul­sions and ar­rests” with­out ad­dress­ing root caus­es would not solve school vi­o­lence.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to pro­vide mea­sur­able out­comes or trans­paren­cy, while re­duc­ing crit­i­cal sup­port staff such as guid­ance coun­sel­lors and school so­cial work­ers.

“The na­tion elect­ed the UNC to do the work of man­ag­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, the PNM calls on the Prime Min­is­ter to rant much less, and work more,” Beck­les said.

The School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Ini­tia­tive be­gan at the start of the 2025/2026 aca­d­e­m­ic year, with the first co­hort of of­fi­cers be­ing placed in schools from Sep­tem­ber 8, 2025. So far, 33 stu­dents have been ar­rest­ed, with 19 charged for vary­ing of­fences.