An­na-Lisa Paul

Call­ing for a deep­er ex­plo­ration of the root caus­es be­hind the ex­plo­sion of vi­o­lence in schools with­in re­cent times, Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) in­ter­im pres­i­dent Zena Ra­matali yes­ter­day said the tac­tic be­ing em­ployed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) to sta­tion po­lice of­fi­cers out­side se­lect­ed “prob­lem schools” is not the an­swer.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns re­gard­ing the move to have com­mu­ni­ty po­lice of­fi­cers post­ed out­side schools in a bid to deal with the re­cent surge in school vi­o­lence, she said, “You just can’t put a plas­ter on a sore with­out do­ing some kind of analy­sis.”

In­sist­ing a more in-depth ex­am­i­na­tion of the is­sues was re­quired, she said au­thor­i­ties had to iden­ti­fy and ad­dress what was caus­ing or lead­ing stu­dents to be­have in this man­ner.

“The school is a mi­cro­cosm of so­ci­ety and we un­der­stand that what­ev­er takes place in the home will play off in the school,” she ar­gued.

Point­ing out the ur­gent need for pro­grammes, coun­selling and greater parental in­volve­ment, Ra­matali added, “Par­ents would be able to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ac­tions of their chil­dren.”

Fol­low­ing the re­turn of all stu­dents to the phys­i­cal class­room on April 19, sev­er­al in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence in­side and out­side of schools have oc­curred, with videos be­ing post­ed to so­cial me­dia show­ing vary­ing de­grees of ag­gres­sion, anger and dis­re­gard for prop­er­ty and per­son.

As part of their re­sponse to the prob­lem, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry con­vened an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of­fi­cials from var­i­ous min­istries to re­vise the School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix, but they are not ex­pect­ed to present rec­om­men­da­tions un­til the end of the first week of May.

An­nounc­ing the lat­est mea­sure on Thurs­day via a press re­lease, the min­istry said the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice Unit would be pro­vid­ing im­me­di­ate sup­port by as­sign­ing of­fi­cers to 15 sec­ondary schools where vi­o­lent in­ci­dents are be­lieved to be most preva­lent. The min­istry said these schools al­so have ded­i­cat­ed guid­ance coun­sel­lors and school so­cial work­ers who will be work­ing along­side the po­lice.

Pend­ing the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tions, the min­istry al­so for­mal­ly wrote to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob for ad­vice on the pro­ce­dures for re­mov­ing vi­o­lent stu­dents from the school en­vi­ron­ment to cen­tres of­fer­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive ser­vices.

But Ra­matali said they need­ed to probe the root caus­es of some of the sit­u­a­tions and work the chil­dren’s par­ents to re­solve the is­sues.

“There are a lot of chil­dren who fall prey to peer pres­sure but we have to be able to look at the dis­ci­pline ma­trix of every school and in­volve the par­ents in terms of work­ing to­geth­er with the schools that are hav­ing these kinds of is­sues.”

She ar­gued that it was, “easy enough to sin­gle out these chil­dren and get them in­to pro­grammes to be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed be­cause they are just play­ing off a lot of pent up anger, re­sent­ment and abuse that they might be en­coun­ter­ing at home and in their var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties.”

“Hav­ing the po­lice out­side the school would just be a de­ter­rent and to keep law and or­der, but it will not be the kind of so­lu­tion that we would want as a par­ent/teacher as­so­ci­a­tion.”

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue fol­low­ing his re­turn from Bar­ba­dos on Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said chil­dren need to un­der­stand that “con­se­quences flow from ac­tions.” He ex­pressed con­cern over the be­hav­iours be­ing dis­played by some stu­dents, even as he ac­knowl­edged the fact that every­one had been “locked up” for al­most two years as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic raged on.

The PM en­cour­aged the par­ents of those per­pe­trat­ing the vi­o­lent acts to be re­cruit­ed to “join in as­sess­ing their be­hav­iour and en­cour­ag­ing im­prove­ments in their con­duct.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Ra­matali called for parental ac­count­abil­i­ty as she urged the min­istry to delve in­to their archives and cull from sev­er­al doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing the De­osaran Re­port and the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy on Par­ent­ing, mea­sures that would re­in­force the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of par­ents in terms of dis­ci­plin­ing their chil­dren.

Al­so weigh­ing in on the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at Jen­ny’s on the Boule­vard in Port-of-Spain­in yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer of the Con­cerned Par­ents’ Move­ment of T&T (CPMTT), Michael Joseph, said, “The or­gan­i­sa­tion is not in favour of po­lice and that type of polic­ing at the schools.”

He ex­plained the pres­ence of uni­formed po­lice could of­ten­times trig­ger ag­gres­sion in some per­sons and greater parental in­volve­ment could play a role in re­duc­ing such in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence.

He sug­gest­ed the min­istry con­sid­er hir­ing so­cial and wel­fare of­fi­cers, even if on a short term ba­sis, as stu­dents re-ac­cli­ma­tise them­selves with what is hap­pen­ing af­ter be­ing away from the class­room for al­most two years. ”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the men­tal stress be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by teach­ers, stu­dents and par­ents, he said, “It might be this youth­ful en­er­gy. They are a bit ag­gres­sive, yes, but where are the av­enues that they could speak out and not act out? These are ar­eas the min­istry can look at, if not to al­le­vi­ate but to as­sist in deal­ing with these prob­lems.”

CPMTT PRO Shami­la Ra­heem re­it­er­at­ed, “Par­ents must be held ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s ac­tions.”

Liken­ing the up­bring­ing of a child to that of a home’s foun­da­tion which must be able to sup­port what­ev­er is placed atop it, she said, “That foun­da­tion needs to be fixed. There are too many prob­lems at the home.”

Claim­ing chil­dren are not bad, she said, “All they need is some guid­ance, some love, some at­ten­tion and that is not be­ing trans­ferred to them.”

She urged par­ents to talk with their kids dai­ly.

“Get them in­volved, have them be part of the dis­cus­sion and let them come up with so­lu­tions. Let us hear from them, they are im­por­tant, their voic­es mat­ter.”