Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge says the Gov­ern­ment may con­sid­er amend­ing ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion to sup­port the ef­fec­tive roll­out of the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (MI­LAT) and Mil­i­tary-Led Youth Pro­gramme of Ap­pren­tice­ship and Re­ori­en­ta­tion Train­ing (MY­PART) ini­tia­tives, par­tic­u­lar­ly for stu­dents re­quired to stay overnight at camps.

In an in­ter­view out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, Sturge ex­plained that while plans for both pro­grammes are ad­vanc­ing, any form of com­pul­so­ry res­i­dence would first re­quire parental con­sent and could raise le­gal con­cerns around per­son­al lib­er­ty.

“It’s pre­ma­ture right now,” he said, “but the thing is, with both pro­grammes, if stu­dents have to stay in or overnight and be a part of the camp, it re­quires the con­sent of the par­ents first of all—be­cause in a sense, it could be per­ceived as a de­pri­va­tion of lib­er­ty.”

He not­ed that, pend­ing le­gal ad­vice and Cab­i­net dis­cus­sions, leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tion might be nec­es­sary to en­sure that par­tic­i­pa­tion can be man­dat­ed where nec­es­sary.

“We’ll need to look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of leg­isla­tive changes so that in the in­ter­im we can com­pel at­ten­dance—so that they ben­e­fit from the pos­i­tive as­pects of the pro­gramme. They don’t lose out from be­ing away from school, and they can be re­formed in the in­ter­im.”

Cur­rent­ly, both MI­LAT and MY­PART pri­mar­i­ly cater to male par­tic­i­pants, but Sturge said a ded­i­cat­ed space for fe­male re­cruits is in ac­tive plan­ning.

“We iden­ti­fied a lo­ca­tion in the east—I think it was pre­vi­ous­ly used as a youth camp—and we are giv­ing ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion to us­ing it as the fe­male head­quar­ters,” he said.

Sturge said in­ter­nal dis­cus­sions will take place over the Ju­ly–Au­gust va­ca­tion to launch both pro­grammes in the new school term.

“I have to have dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and Min­is­ter (Roger)Alexan­der and a cou­ple of oth­er col­leagues over the course of the va­ca­tion, Ju­ly–Au­gust, and we should see a roll­out hope­ful­ly in Sep­tem­ber,” he said.

On the ques­tion of tim­ing for any re­quired amend­ments, Sturge said the mat­ter would be treat­ed with ur­gency if found nec­es­sary.

“If there is need for an amend­ment to the Act or any sort of leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tion, that would be among the first items of busi­ness. But that has to be dis­cussed,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der al­so ad­dressed con­cerns sur­round­ing re­cent in­ci­dents of stu­dent vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing the re­cent charg­ing of five stu­dents in­volved in an as­sault case.

He ac­knowl­edged the se­ri­ous­ness of the mat­ter but em­pha­sised the need for a joint ap­proach with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ef­fec­tive­ly man­age these is­sues.

“I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. He [the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion] has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We’re work­ing to­geth­er for the bet­ter of the na­tion,” Alexan­der said.

He stressed that chil­dren must un­der­stand the rules, reg­u­la­tions, and con­se­quences of their ac­tions. Ad­dress­ing par­ents, Alexan­der ap­plaud­ed those who were en­gaged and en­cour­aged oth­ers to seek sup­port.

Re­flect­ing on his re­cent in­ter­ac­tions on the cam­paign trail, he not­ed that some par­ents strug­gle to as­sist with their chil­dren’s home­work, which can leave stu­dents feel­ing lost at home.

“I im­plore them to seek help. They have their phones, and every­one is on their phone, Face­book. Seek help even on the in­ter­net. It will be able to help you in some way or an­oth­er,” he urged.

Alexan­der al­so high­light­ed on­go­ing ef­forts to re­ha­bil­i­tate stu­dents be­fore rein­te­grat­ing them in­to schools. He warned against sus­pen­sions and send­ing chil­dren home as a form of pun­ish­ment with­out sup­port­ive in­ter­ven­tion.

“If we just... keep them home for a cou­ple of days, they feel that they would have achieved some­thing. It’s like stand­ing up on top of the podi­um for first place as the first per­son ever to get sus­pend­ed in the school and all the neg­a­tive things they look at and they cel­e­brate it. You must not en­cour­age that,” he said

The Min­is­ter’s re­marks un­der­score a col­lab­o­ra­tive and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive ap­proach to ad­dress­ing stu­dent mis­con­duct, fo­cus­ing on ed­u­ca­tion, parental sup­port, and pos­i­tive be­hav­iour­al cor­rec­tion rather than sole­ly puni­tive mea­sures.

For­mer Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly weighed in on re­cent cas­es in­volv­ing stu­dents charged with crim­i­nal of­fences, un­der­scor­ing that such in­ci­dents were not un­prece­dent­ed dur­ing her tenure.

“This is not the first time a child has been charged, a stu­dent has been charged, in my tenure as well and even be­fore that, so this is not new,” Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said. “Once some­one com­mits some­thing that is against the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go, that’s par for the course.”

Ad­dress­ing ques­tions on the con­tin­u­a­tion of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes such as MI­LAT and MY­PART, she ex­pressed strong sup­port for their use.

“Most cer­tain­ly, be­cause many of our stu­dents need that type of im­mer­sive en­vi­ron­ment to be able to trans­form the be­hav­iour of so­ci­ety,” she said.