Gail Alexan­der

Par­ents need to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and teach chil­dren re­spect - and dis­ci­pline in or­der to com­bat T&T’s school vi­o­lence prob­lem and the big­ger is­sues it pro­duces.

Ad­vice on the sit­u­a­tion came on Thurs­day from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­spec­tive­ly at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s pub­lic meet­ing in Barataria.

Row­ley said he sup­port­ed the ap­peal to par­ents which Gads­by-Dol­ly made ear­li­er in her pre­sen­ta­tion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly had point­ed to a sur­vey done in all schools last month show­ing the num­ber of schools with stu­dents who’ve been sus­pend­ed more than three times since April 2022 and the num­ber of stu­dents sus­pend­ed—47 schools and 142 stu­dents.

Row­ley said, ”I want to ap­peal to par­ents in this land, where that is be­com­ing faster and faster a wider killing field. I want to let you par­ents know: you have the fun­da­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and when you see a child be­hav­ing in a par­tic­u­lar way, the ques­tion must be asked – where are or where is a par­ent?

“There are too many par­ents in this coun­try who aren’t pay­ing enough at­ten­tion to their chil­dren suf­fi­cient­ly, leav­ing them up to the teach­ers to work mir­a­cle, leav­ing them to the Gov­ern­ment and the po­lice ...what can the po­lice do ex­cept act af­ter the crime is com­mit­ted when you turn a blind eye to it.”

He re­count­ed see­ing in an air­port a well-dressed sev­en-year-old boy mak­ing mis­chief. The boy, who was re­strained by his fa­ther, kicked his par­ent. Row­ley said he was amazed, but the fa­ther did noth­ing.

“I’m not here ad­vo­cat­ing beat­ing chil­dren, I’m say­ing take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. And what’s worse now: it used to be the boys long time—rough play among the boys.

“I was in high school, we had one or two lil fights in high school, no weapons. Then the girls join in and I could tell you some­thing – you all watch Wakan­da? Woman could fight – that’s dem now.

“And worse now: par­ents join in. Par­ents! What is a par­ent think­ing when you go in­to a school and de­cide to act vi­o­lent­ly against some­body else’s child? Is that the best way to deal with the sit­u­a­tion?”

Re­fer­ring to a spate of re­cent vi­o­lence in schools, Row­ley con­tin­ued, “…Then every­body turn round and blame the ‘Gov­va­ment’. I’m say­ing the Gov­ern­ment isn’t tak­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“The Gov­ern­ment is say­ing to you, the first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a fa­ther, mothe , un­cle, aunt, broth­er, sis­ter, neigh­bour - is yours!

“We need to bring our streets back to where when chil­dren walk in the streets, adults must mean some­thing to them and you must re­spect them and they must re­spect you. But the par­ents have to teach them that.”

He said at the April Cari­com crime sym­po­sium in T&T, ter­ri­to­ries will talk about their cir­cum­stances “as we’re not in this alone.”

Fa­thers: Step up —Nyan

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly, who said par­ents must help to take back T&T, ear­li­er said, “School in­dis­ci­pline sug­gests we’re cre­at­ing undis­ci­plined out of con­trol cit­i­zens lack­ing judg­ment, de­cen­cy, re­spect and fo­cus, who are thin-skinned, ‘doh care’ and who’ll ex­it the sys­tem with or with­out the req­ui­site qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be de­cent­ly em­ployed.

“They’ll, there­fore, be­come a bur­den on tax­pay­ers, a men­ace to so­ci­ety and pro­duc­ers of sim­i­lar cit­i­zens.”

She said when stu­dents re­turned to phys­i­cal class­es in April 2022, in­dis­ci­pline and fight­ing came in­to sharp fo­cus, as in the time away, stu­dents lost the dis­ci­pline of be­ing in class­es, the abil­i­ty to be tol­er­ant and cy­ber-bul­ly­ing im­pact­ed re­la­tion­ships.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said stu­dents al­so lost in­ter­est, en­dured trau­ma/ loss­es, en­tered sur­vival mode and weren’t men­tal­ly read­just­ed to school.

“Par­ents al­so felt over­whelmed by so­cial/fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances and their at­ten­tion to their chil­dren suf­fered,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly de­tailed how min­istry di­vi­sions are as­sist­ing - in­clud­ing with 20,000-plus stu­dents re­ferred to its Stu­dents Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion an­nu­al­ly.

She added, “Like char­i­ty, dis­ci­pline be­gins in the home and spread abroad. Some 28 per cent of fam­i­lies in T&T are sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies, most of which are fe­male-led.

“There­fore, like it or not - women have a se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for rais­ing pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens ... 60 per cent of YTC in­mates are from fe­male-led homes.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly ap­pealed to fa­thers, “Whether or not you live with the child, you can help to in­stil dis­ci­pline. Most of­fend­ers are boys—many with no fa­ther fig­ure ac­tive in their lives.”

She added, “... We can on­ly win the fight against school in­dis­ci­pline to­geth­er—the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry can­not do it alone.”