Tim blames Minister Garcia

At a Joint Select Committee meeting of Parliament on Wednesday, UWI, St Augustine campus clinical psychology masters programme head Dr Katija Khan described suicide as a “Public health crisis”, which had, “Extended to the very young and very vulnerable students as well.” In a telephone interview yesterday, Gopeesingh said while the statistics had to be verified, this was nevertheless an “indictment” on Minister Garcia. “He should focus some attention on the issues relating to student behaviour in schools. The Ministry has reversed a tremendous amount of programmes which we implemented aimed at helping students who were not moving forward,” Gopeesingh said.

“We increased the amount of student support services division with guidance officers, guidance counsellors, behavioural psychologists and clinical psychologists, most of whom have been removed. So obviously, troubled students have not been getting the professional support from within the school system which was there before,” Gopeesingh said.

“In addition, we had a number of homework centres where students would get some extra counselling and support on evenings. We had over 300 educational workshops and over 20,000 parents participated...

that too has been eliminated as well,” he said.

Policies and programmes, Gopeesingh claimed, were removed by the ministry which is overseen by Minister Garcia, “And this is obviously leading to increased student deviant behaviour and the problems we are witnessing now within the education system,” Gopeesingh added.

Asked whether suicidal tendencies among students could be linked to violence and bulling in schools, Gopeesingh said, “Yes, there are a lot of students who feel bullied and become depressed.” “I’m not a psychologist but these are some of the issues that can lead to depression.

Some come from very poor homes and they find it difficult (to cope in school), some students come from homes where there is incest and it affects them. We implemented over 23 programmes to help this type of situation but most have been removed.”