Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

For the year so far, there have been two stu­dents who were ex­pelled from school for fight­ing. Con­fir­ma­tion of this came yes­ter­day from Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath.

While da­ta re­lat­ed to re­ports made by prin­ci­pals to the po­lice are not cen­tral­ly avail­able, Dowlath said the min­istry con­firmed that there were three ex­pul­sions in 2022, 14 stu­dent ex­pul­sions in 2023, five in 2014 and two record­ed as of April 2025.

The min­is­ter al­so con­firmed that a memo ti­tled “Mea­sures to Deal with School Vi­o­lence—Ex­pul­sion”, which has been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia was is­sued in June 2022 to prin­ci­pals in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools by the Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer.

He said the memo was in­tend­ed to guide school ad­min­is­tra­tors in ad­dress­ing se­ri­ous in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence with­in the school sys­tem. The memo in­struct­ed that mea­sures to deal with in­ci­dents of vi­o­lent be­hav­iour as out­lined in the Ed­u­ca­tion Act Chap­ter 39:01 and the Min­istry’s Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct, must be strict­ly en­forced, in light of con­tin­u­ing school in­dis­ci­pline.

It ad­vised that stu­dents who com­mit of­fences re­sult­ing in se­ri­ous in­jury or pos­sess dan­ger­ous weapons while in school uni­form, whether on or off the school com­pound, face the max­i­mum penal­ty of ex­pul­sion from school. Those stu­dents would have to con­tin­ue school­ing at al­ter­na­tive in­sti­tu­tions.

The prin­ci­pals were in­struct­ed to re­port all in­ci­dents im­me­di­ate­ly to the near­est po­lice sta­tion and in­formed that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice had in­di­cat­ed that the stu­dents would be charged.

The min­is­ter ex­plained that the re­view en­com­pass­es poli­cies and strate­gies that are cur­rent­ly in place and would be in­formed by avail­able da­ta and stake­hold­er in­put, to strength­en the na­tion­al ap­proach to stu­dent be­hav­iour and school safe­ty.

Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net meet­ing on June 5, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that stu­dents caught as­sault­ing oth­er stu­dents, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals would be ex­pelled.

She al­so warned par­ents who en­gage in in­ter­est and vi­o­lence would face the full brunt of the law.

“All acts of school vi­o­lence must now be re­ferred to the po­lice for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions. Par­ents need to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour. If they can’t train them to prop­er­ly be­have in school, then let them stay home and then we will have to look for spaces to prop­er­ly nur­ture them and coun­sel them,” the Prime Min­is­ter cau­tioned.

Re­spond­ing to these mea­sures, for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly had stat­ed that acts of school vi­o­lence were rou­tine­ly re­port­ed to the TTPS, and al­ready pun­ish­able by ex­pul­sion.