EDUCATION-TRINIDAD: School Violence Worries Authorities

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Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Feb 15 2002 (IPS) - The cartoon in one of the daily newspapers sums it all up: A teacher stands before a class with a police officer standing guard over the students and remarks, “This job just ain’t what it used to be.”

In recent weeks, violent incidents ranging from stabbing to a murder have rocked the education system. The murder, of a 16-year- old schoolgirl, has been linked to the possible satanic practices of a relative but it occurred in the midst of a wave of violence that has forced teachers to demand police patrols at their troubled schools.

The Ministry of National Security has since indicated that school violence will form part of the overall crime-fighting plan for the country, where 24 persons have been killed in the first 45 days of the year. Last year’s murder tally exceeded 150.

The government has appointed a task force to deal with the situation. The Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) says it is convinced the violent episodes at schools are part of a wider societal problem.

“It is unfair to think the school alone will find a solution, if we are not part of the solution, we are definitely part of the problem,” says TTUTA President Trevor Oliver.

Oliver says the situation is not helped when parents, who should be role models, fight at schools in the presence of pupils. He says men in particular should consider playing a more meaningful role in the education of their children, adding “men should not only see themselves as a sperm bank.”

Police Commissioner Hilton Guy says law enforcement authorities need to come up with a plan to address the situation. “Not a plan just to attack it from the expression end where it is happening, but we are going to have a look at the causes and address those causes,” he says.

The government has said that it would spare “no effort to ensure the citizens of the country feel secure” and that funds would be made available to the relevant bodies to deal with the situation.

But Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his wife, Education Minister Hazel Manning, have blamed the introduction of universal secondary education here over the last two years, as one of the factors contributing to the violence at schools.

“The community violence taking place has had a serious impact on the schools and the universal education system has had an impact because a lot of those children are frustrated and are having problems to read and write and they give vent to their feelings,” says Mrs. Manning.

“You now have in the school system, students who were in the zero to 30 percent cohort and that may have contributed in some way,” the Prime Minister told reporters.

However, former Education Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, under whose stewardship the universal education system was introduced here, rejects the prime minister’s analysis, describing it as “a clear cop-out.”

She says it was important for the authorities to continue with the Schools Intervention Strategies (SIS), which the TTUTA has warmly embraced.

SIS provides for a holistic approach to the violence in schools, providing for rehabilitation, outreach referral including guidance counsellors, “constructive suspension of school students” and the involvement of the community and police.

Oliver says that the SIS also provides for “zero tolerance” for students with criminal attitudes.

Counselling psychologist Anna Maria Mora, who was part of a 1989 national consultation that dealt with a similar situation, says there has been an overall neglect of the system. She recalls that several recommendations were made including a media blitz highlighting various issues such as self-esteem.

But she laments that the media campaign was cosmetic and not sustained.

“This was a recommendation, it had to be done and it was done. No matter that the recommendation stated that these types of production should be ongoing because lack of parental training was found to be a cause of predisposition to violence in teenagers.”

Other recommendations had included the employment of trained counsellors and psychologists in schools. But, she observes, “many of the well-trained guidance counsellors have left the school system and the Guidance Unit has contracted instead of expanded.”

Mora, who established a youth centre along the troubled east-west corridor of the country, repeated the warning she made to the national consultation in 1989.

“If any serious education is to take place in this country, we have to accept the fact that many of our youth cannot be educated in the system as we know it. Serious reorganisation has to take place. Alternative approaches to education must be set up,” she says, urging the removal of “certain youths” from their present volatile environment.

But she insists that introduction of a “Boot camp” system favoured by some will not help solve the situation, since the troubled youths “live in very rigid, arid, and punitive environments.”

Mora advocates re-examination of the universal education system, saying: “Universal education is not about examination results, it is about preparation for life, which is what I think many of the professionals in the education system have been striving to prepare youth to handle.”

She dismisses the assertions of both the prime minister and education minister, that universal secondary education is to blame for the violence at schools.

“This could never be a contributor to the violence in our schools. Gross neglect is responsible,” she says.