Ministry needs to act now

Ministry of Education officials must stop denying the problems at Tranquillity Government Secondary School and take firm action to curb the rising incidents of student indiscipline, as well as improve the school’s infrastructure. That is the view of at least one teacher at the school. Responding to last week’s reports in Newsday of teachers not teaching assigned classes and of students gambling and smoking on the compound, the teacher, who spoke on  the condition of anonymity, said the reports were true.

However, she justified the action of some of the teachers at the Victoria Avenue school, saying some of them stayed away because of the conditions at the school. She also referred to the indiscipline of students and various incidents which are “covered up” by the ministry. She said while some students blamed the indiscipline on students in Form One, “they all have no discipline.” She said the situation was one where teachers were fed-up of the “roving gangs of students who push drugs and have access to guns, the smoking and gambling and their general lack of wanting to come to classes.”

She said students attend school armed with knives and other weapons and roam the corridors of the school all day, deliberately missing classes. “Some teachers are just too afraid to discipline the students for fear of being attacked.” The teacher claimed there have been incidents where teachers have been assaulted. She claimed that last year one student stabbed a teacher with a pen and there were two rapes on the compound. According to the teacher, the matters  were “covered up by the ministry” and the perpetrators, who were suspended, are now back at school. The teacher said since the school year began in September, there were weekly all-day Monday workshops  in which approximately 15 teachers participate.

Besides their attendance at workshops, however, she said while most teachers at other schools do not take their full 28 days leave for the year, teachers at Tranquillity “take all, which is about one a week, in addition to the public holidays.” She complained that there were three toilets to share between 50 female teachers and one for the 30 male teachers. She said a ceiling with pigeon droppings and maggots recently fell on students in Standard Three H. In addition, the de-motivated teacher said students did not have any respect for the principal and often, when he is walking along the corridors, “they continue with their gambling as usual.”

She said the students also “duck” the two school safety officers on the compound. She was unable to assess how effective the officers have been in assisting with the problems, noting they have only recently been placed at the school. Describing Tranquillity as one of  the “high-risk” schools, the teacher insisted that the ills at the school were well known by all in authority and it was time that the principal and the ministry admit there were problems and try to deal with them. She said too often the teachers were interrogated more than the students, who use their age as a defence against allegations of their misbehaviour.