Out of our homes

ALL the measures proposed by Education Minister Hazel Manning for dealing with the rising incidence of violence and gang warfare in our schools are welcome and, we feel sure, will prove helpful in the long run, that is if they are fully implemented and maintained. Like so many other expedient government initiatives, however, these measures may not have an extended life, particularly if the manpower they require is in short supply.

The idea, for example, of using unarmed community police to serve as “guardians of the schools outside of the school compound” appears to be a good idea but where will these “guardians” come from to protect the entire school system when we know that the manpower of the Police Service is already stretched thin in having to deal with the country’s critical crime problem. Conscious of this, National Security Minister Martin Joseph made the point: “We need to ensure that while we provide support there, we don’t open ourselves to a challenge somewhere else.” Minister Manning has announced a whole range of responses to the situation which, she said, would take some time since they were working with the problems one by one. For the first time, for instance, the Ministry has put 12 social workers in schools to work with difficult children and their families. They were also in the process of establishing “a permanent support structure,” whatever that means, for difficult children.

All these interventionist measures are well and good, but it seems to us that, in dealing practically with the increasing incidence of violence in our schools and the trouble makers engaged in it, the Ministry has fallen short of its declared “zero tolerance” stand. In our view, the crisis now requires that every recalcitrant student who arms himself with an offensive weapon with the intention of engaging in some form of violence should be made to feel the full weight of the law. A secondary school student who sharpens a cutlass and takes it to school in his book bag in order to “do battle” sometime later is a menace that must be firmly dealt with. So too are students wielding baseball bats and ice picks in gang attacks against the unsuspecting students of another school. It seems only a matter of time before such students graduate into the adult world of crime and it is vital for them to realise that the school system, as the wider society, will not tolerate that kind of disruptive and dangerous behaviour.

Perhaps the education authorities should listen to the forthright observations made by former principal of Bishop Anstey High School Valerie Taylor at the recent third sitting of the Permanent Allan Harris Conference on Education. According to Taylor, the education system is in crisis and the students are “on the verge of rebellion.” What is happening in education reflects what she termed “the dysfunctional aspects of society,” adding that it was indeed a faithful reflection of issues not resolved in our society. Taylor’s view, in fact, seems to coincide with the opinion we have already expressed on this issue: “What do we really expect from homes where parents set the worst possible examples for their children, where there is no moral or spiritual guidance or nurturing and where the philosophy of might-is-right informs the general attitude?” This is where the root of the problem lies, in the homes of our country. But where are the measures to deal with this?