Garcia: Vast reduction in school violence

Education Minister, Anthony Garcia, announced this “good news” during a press conference at the ministry’s St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain head office yesterday afternoon. “The information that comes directly to me in the form of requests for extended suspension, those requests have been few and far between whereas...previously (there would be) about 40 to 50 requests per month. (Now), if I get two or three requests per month, it says a lot.” Another reason for the “great and a substantial reduction in the incidents of violence and indiscipline in our school,” Garcia explained, was the establishment of learning enhancement centres (LEC) for students who display “deviant behaviour”.

“We had personnel from the Student Support Services Division do the assessment and when those students returned to the (regular school) system, they returned with positive attributes __ they have not been engaging in the type of violence and indiscipline that they were engaged in previously.” Regarding a fight involving female students of El Dorado West Secondary School; a viral video circulated in late November showing a group of girls beating up a female student, Garcia said the parents of those students have agreed that their children must face the consequence of their actions.