Students at war

Violence in schools and among schoolchildren escalated in several parts of the country yesterday as boys and girls fought each other, one wielding a cutlass that sent a 14-year old boy to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital with stab wounds to the chest. In other incidents, one boy severely beat a teacher, another beat a guard, and one used a gun in threatening to rob his schoolmates. By the end of yesterday at least nine students had been suspended for about three weeks, and one was in police custody in Arima for possession of marijuana. Yesterday, Education Minister Hazel Manning continued to label media reports on the behaviour in schools as “not totally true.” A student of the St James Secondary School ended up in hospital after a fight broke out on the street after school was dismissed. The boy’s name was given as Joshua Williams of Western Main Road, Cocorite. Principal of St James Secondary, Michael Gray, would only comment that the incident had happened “outside the school  not on the school compound.” St James police had to be called to the scene as nearby residents looked on at the fight and shook their heads at what school days had come to.

In Central, police had to be called out to the Chaguanas Senior Secondary School where two students at the neighbouring Junior Secondary School assaulted a security guard and threatened another guard and a female teacher. The schoolboys, aged 15 and 16, spent most of yesterday at the Chaguanas Police Station being questioned by police in connection with the beating of the security guard and threatening to inflict violence on two other figures of authority at the school. At the Chaguanas school, reports indicate that around 12.45 pm a female teacher saw two boys wearing the uniform of the junior secondary school and questioned their presence on the premises. In response one of the boys asked the teacher if she wanted him to shoot her. The frightened teacher left and returned with a security guard. As the guard approached the students, one kicked him in the face.
With one guard on the ground another guard approached, but was violently threatened by the schoolboy who told him he would chop off his hand and put the dismembered limb in his pocket. The violent confrontation was eventually put down when two more security guards rushed over and detained the two boys. The Chaguanas CID is investigating.

In yet another incident yesterday, a school bus transporting children from the launch of the Coca Cola “Xtra-Curricular” Carnival show had to be stopped by the driver when a fight broke out in the bus between students and a passenger who was being harassed by them. The passenger alighted and went to pick up a bottle to hit one of the students who had followed him out of  the bus. A policeman had to intervene and restrained both passenger and student. On Wednesday, the head of the mathematics department of the Siparia Composite School, Seudath Persad, was beaten by a student; a 15-year-old Brazil High School student was held with ammunition, while a 13-year-old boy of La Horquetta Primary School is being questioned for attempting to rob his schoolmates with a gun. Also yesterday, a 14-year-old Form Two student of the Cunupia High School appeared before Chaguanas Court Magistrate Nanette Forde-John charged with maliciously wounding his classmate also 14 years of age. According to reports, at around 11.30 am on Tuesday at Cunupia the students were doing a class project in the biology lab when an argument and fight broke out over a broken ruler. The fight was parted and the boys were spoken to. Sometime later however, while one of the two boys continued with his project the other picked up a stool and clobbered the unsuspecting student twice on his head. The injured teen was taken to the Chaguanas Medical Facility where he received eight stitches to his head and was discharged. His attacker was handed over to the police who charged him. He was granted $20,000 bail and placed in the custody of his father. He will appear in court again later this month.

At the Belmont Junior Secondary School on Tuesday, a policeman was attacked and kicked, and a member of staff injured when students on the evening shift went on a violent rampage. Sources at this school described the violence as a regular occurrence, particularly on the evening shift. At around 4 pm Tuesday, teachers found themselves under siege as students wielded cutlasses, knives, gutted umbrellas and lengths of iron from the school’s metal work class. One teacher was reportedly trapped in a classroom while others described the atmosphere as a war zone. Treasurer of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Krishnarine Bassaw, met with the principal, teachers and representatives of the Ministry of Education on Wednesday at the Belmont school. Bassaw noted that TTUTA’s 18-point plan to curb violence in schools had included the presence of police officers at the various institutions, but ironically the policeman had now become the target of violence. A source at the school told Newsday that students were openly telling teachers on Tuesday afternoon that they were not afraid of the police, nor were they afraid to die. During Wednesday’s meeting, TTUTA requested that students involved in the brawl be suspended, but was informed that these students were still at school. School officials said that when students were suspended they simply returned to school the next day by jumping over the fence which needs to be repaired.

Bassaw confirmed that the school’s security had been compromised as the fence on the northern side of the school, on Lady Young Road is in a state of desrepair and has been so for a long time. Bassaw said the number of security guards should be increased from two to six and that they be both male and female as on Tuesday there were only two female guards on duty when the violence erupted. Teachers on the evening shift are more vulnerable as the majority of them are young women who have recently entered the service. Bassaw commended the action of the women teachers who bravely confronted the students on Tuesday and were able to disarm a male student carrying a cutlass. The PTA president of the Siparia Composite School, Hayden Bennet, said that the suspension of delinquent students especially those resorting to violence against teachers and students is not enough. “These students need to be put out of school he said as they are not interested in learning. “They need to be put at other institutions where they would be forced to be under control,” an angry Bennet stated. He continued: “the lives of teachers and students are at risk and the Ministry of Education must do something quickly to solve this before it gets worse.

At the Siparia Composite, Persad, husband of popular chutney artist Drupatee Ramgoonai, was struck with the teen’s shoolbag and kicked about the chest after he refused to allow a student back into the classroom. The incident occurred around 10.30 am when Persad asked students to take out their text books so class could begin. The student stormed out of the classroom because he did not have his textbook. When he tried to re-enter the classroom he was stopped by Persad. The boy became enraged and struck Persad across the face with his schoolbag breaking Persad’s glasses in the process. The teacher was then kicked across the chest. Persad declined to press criminal charges against the student, although he was pressed to do so by some teachers and parents who want stern disciplinary action to be taken against all violent students. At yesterday’s post-Cabinet meeting Education Minister Hazel Manning said that the Ministry was going to implement wardens in violent-prone secondary schools at a projected cost of some $2.5 million. But TTUTA is charging that the Ministry has to address some of the more fundamental problems which occur on the evening shifts at junior secondary schools. The school population on a single shift is approximately 800 and this needs to be decreased, TTUTA said, as the Ministry seeks to de-shift junior secondary schools. junior secondary schools have one principal and two vice principals on each shift.