The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has of­fi­cial­ly launched its School Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit in To­ba­go, be­gin­ning with vis­its to Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary and Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary on Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 23.

The an­nounce­ment came from Zor­isha Hack­ett, Sec­re­tary of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials over­saw the vis­its, which high­light­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween as­signed of­fi­cers, MTS se­cu­ri­ty, and the schools’ Health and Safe­ty Of­fi­cers. The part­ner­ship aims to sup­port prin­ci­pals and teach­ers, strength­en dis­ci­pline, and cre­ate safer learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments for stu­dents.

The po­lice pres­ence is in­tend­ed to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al sup­port to prin­ci­pals in ad­dress­ing stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline through non-lethal and con­struc­tive in­ter­ven­tions.

The arrange­ment will be close­ly mon­i­tored by both DERTech and the TTPS to en­sure its ef­fec­tive­ness.

Dis­cus­sions al­so con­sid­ered ex­tend­ing po­lice sup­port to at least nine ad­di­tion­al pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.

Un­der this plan, the iden­ti­fied schools would ben­e­fit from clos­er mon­i­tor­ing and more fre­quent vis­its by po­lice of­fi­cers, with the aim of fos­ter­ing a safe and sup­port­ive learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

Of­fi­cials said the roll­out will con­tin­ue to be close­ly mon­i­tored to en­sure that safe­ty and dis­ci­pline re­main key pri­or­i­ties in To­ba­go’s schools.