HEAVY MANNERS

Tough measures should be employed with respect to the bad behaved small minority of schoolchildren who, armed with knives, cultlasses and other weapons, have been holding the country’s education system, and with it the majority of schoolchildren to ransom.

Teachers have been threatened and assaulted, and one reportedly kicked in the face, while fellow students have been cuffed, kicked and stabbed, and classes disrupted at secondary schools in North, Central and South Trinidad in a disturbing wave of student violence over the past week. Those who allegedly commit these crimes should be charged and taken before Magistrates, and if found guilty after due process, be sent to the Youth Training Centre (YTC) and placed under heavy manners, under the supervision of perhaps soldiers. They should be kept fully occupied all day, beginning with a carefully worked out pattern of physical exercise, including drills, push ups and long walks, before sitting down to breakfast which they should be required to prepare themselves. This should be followed with a mixture of studies including vocational subjects, and again exercise, interspersed by lunch. Their studies should be closely monitored through a system of regular examinations, and in the case of vocational studies through how much progress they have made, in whatever field.

Refusal to attend classes should not be tolerated, and in turn, any attempt at challenging the authority of those in charge, any refusal to obey instructions should be punished by a system of additional drills and/or work. The tough measures would be designed to instill needed discipline in the youths. They should also be entitled to some leisure time to read and educate themselves for a better, more disciplined life. They should at the end of a fixed period be made to appreciate the value of education and discipline. And if this means separating them from society for fixed periods, and particularly keeping them away from schools to prevent them from interfering with the right of others to study and advance themselves, so be it. ‘Badjohnism’ cannot and must not be tolerated in our schools and the strict regimen must be accompanied by counselling even psychiatric evaluation.

Most of the unruly schoolchildren are not necessarily from financially deprived homes, as all too many of them wear expensive sneakers costing hundreds of dollars. Some have cell phones. Admittedly, their sneakers and other forms of dress may not be a true reflection of their parents’ incomes, and some of them have reportedly been found with illegal substances, allegedly for purposes of selling. Parents of these schoolchildren must be made to bear part of the cost of their being kept at the Youth Training Centre or other detention institution, in a way placing the parents too under heavy manners. It would be unfair to call upon taxpayers to fully bear the cost incurred by wayward and/or violent schoolchildren, where contributory factors to their deviant behaviour may lie in their parents’ irresponsible attititude with respect to their upbringing. In the end neither the children’s breaking of the law nor their parents abandonment of their responsibilities should be tolerated. Action, tough action is necessary now and an important ingredient must be sporting activities. These are our children and we cannot allow them to become hardened criminals.