RAISE COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE TO 15

The compulsory school age should be raised from age 12 to 15, is one of several recommendations being made by Independent Senator Pro-fessor Ramesh Deosaran in his report on school delinquency and violence to the Ministry of Education. Among the recommendations are also  suggestions that the current laws regarding parental or guardian control should be strictly enforced and  a system of school wardens or school police and a School Safety and Protection Agency, to police and protect the school and its environment, be immediately established. Their duties will include patrolling the school premises and its environment, ensuring that students are not loitering, that students behave well on their way to and from school, and that students do not unduly miss or skip classes. This proposed system of School War-dens is an updated, expansion of and improvement to the existing system of “school attendance officer” which, in effect, has been virtually non-existent  or broken down. The idea is to make schools a peace zone with no smoking and drinking and to introduce an anti-crime (civics) programme, and a range of training programmes for teachers in classroom management and delinquency reduction.

The report also suggests that the Ministry review the policy of corporal punishment, in full consultation with teachers, parents and even students. At the same time, parallel emphasis should be placed on examining the role of alternative to physical forms of discipline. Deosaran, head of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice of the UWI, was commissioned by the Secondary Education Modernisation Prog-ramme Coordination Unit (SEMPCU) of the Ministry of Education, to look into the violence and delinquency in schools. Prof Deosaran’s 400-page survey report was handed over to the Minister of Education, Senator Hazel Manning, on May 28, 2003. In that report entitled “Benchmarking Vio-lence and Delinquency in the Secondary School: Towards a Culture of Peace and Civility,” the Independent Senator also recommended an improved code of conduct and discipline for all schools, the initiation of a social contract for student behaviour between teachers, parents and students at the beginning of each term, a benchmarking system design to measure and respond to school violence and delinquency, and also to measure the impact of other intervention programmes, and to reduce overall delinquency over time. The report said that several complaints were raised by principals regarding the lack of expeditiousness and efficiency by the Teaching Service Com-mission (TSC) in handling staff indiscipline and vacancies, both of which apparently contribute to unsupervised students and student delinquency. The recommendation was that TSC regulations be immediately reviewed and the existing procedures be tightened so as to deal with this problem. It was also proposed that all secondary schools be subjected to a system of direct service evaluation in areas of student academic performance, standards and level of student discipline, and extra-curricular activities. This proposal is not designed to be punitive or unduly competitive but a means of raising standards and benchmarking continuous improvements.
 
Further, The Children Act and Education Act should be reviewed so as to help ensure fuller obligations by parents/-guardians for the welfare of those under their charge. Given the impetus towards free secondary education for all, “we suggest that the compulsory school age be increased from 12 to 15 years so as to provide a better foundation for containing and supervising youth behaviour,” the report states. The report was strong on the point that Government should review and strengthen all legislation pertaining to parental (or guardian) control and protection of children with particular emphasis on the prevention and reduction of crime and delinquency (eg Children Act, 46:01) It stated that many of the current laws were not really enforced and that some needed to brought in line with current realities, given the domino effect such lack of enforcement is having on school discipline and family irresponsibility. The report also recommneded that the Police Service should review and strengthen its operations for enforcing the laws regarding violence and other crimes by young persons. The use of existing Mediation Centres for young people should be maximised by the police and schools. It also suggested that the relevant legislation should be tightened so as to penalise parents or guardians for having children miss school or homework without good excuse.Parents with children who are repeated delinquents at school should be held accountable with some modicum of penalties. The report called for students to known exactly what the legal penalties for such offences as assault, possession and use of illegal drugs, robbery, larceny, obscence language, under-age smoking and drinking,  etc. are.  And teachers, parents and visitors should not be allowed to smoke or consume alcohol on the school premises, and this should be made known to the entire school community. The school environment should therefore be known as a “drug free” zone with the example coming from the top. There was also a call for random searches for weapons, drugs, and other illicit materials to be undertaken of students in secondary schools. The report emphasised that children, especially now, need a heavy dose of respect for authority.