Protest goes to school

THE SPIRIT of indiscipline seeping into so many of the country’s schools had a virtual field day at San Fernando Secondary Comprehensive on Wednes-day. Disorder reigned when students erupted into an agry demonstration, protesting the transfer of acting principal Gene Bacchus. It was a most unseemly and distressing incident, with scores of uniformed teenagers rowdily venting their displeasure and refusing to listen to appeals for order from their teachers and a 20-man team of riot policemen. The implications of this open protest in a secondary school are so serious that we are compelled to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

Recently, we have had to express our disapproval over the organisation of demonstration marches among the country’s school children who should be concentrating on their class work rather than parading in the streets. What happened at San Fernando Secondary Comprehensive on Wednesday went an unfortunate step further both in the vehemence of the protest and the motive behind it. Indeed, the message it sends both to the students of this school and the rest of the country is a deleterious and dangerous one, encouraging disrespect and open defiance of authority and, if reports reaching us are correct, fostering racial bias.

The protest staged by a large section of the student population was, of course, organised. We are told it was the handiwork of the student council which the acting principal had helped to set up. But we find it hard to believe that such a demonstration could have taken place without the knowlege and acquiescence of the entire teaching staff. Not only did the girls wear yellow ribbons in their hair and the boys strips of yellow cloth on their uniforms, but the protesters waved placards bearing their threat to shut down the institution: “No Baccus, No School. No Work. Big troble.” It now strikes us as tragically ironic that the energy and passion which the students displayed in mounting this protest are not reflected in their aptitude for learning since they are unable to spell the name of their principal — not Baccus but Bacchus — and the word “trouble” which they wrote as “troble.”

In our view, that spells big trouble for the educational process in that school. How impervious the disorderly students may be to what the school has to offer may also be seen in their cynical disregard for the Ministry’s Anger Management Seminar which was being held at SFSC on Wednesday, the same time they chose to stage their angry outburst. But what may well be worse is what we understand to be the motive behind this protest. As the acting Principal, Mr Bacchus’ stay at San Fernando Secondary Comprehensive was always intended to be temporary. In fact, after three months at SFSC, he was due to take up new duties at Couva Junior Secondary yesterday.

The incoming principal is Mr Vishnu Dass who, it is reported, went to the Ministry of Education’s office in San Fernando when he heard what was taking place at the school. While students praised the work done by Mr Bacchus during his brief stint at SFSC, some of them are reported as saying they did not want an Indian principal. How far does this view go? It would be horrifying if this were the true motive of the protest, promoted either by members of the PTA or the teaching staff. There is something quite ugly here, and the Ministry must do something about it.