DISQUIET AT TRANQUILLITY

In the old days Tranquillity Government schools were places of great discipline and turned out men and women of worth. What a pity that today we should hear a report by a teacher of the level of student indiscipline there, including “roving gangs...who push guns and have access to drugs”, smoke and gamble and turn up at school armed with knives.

In addition, the teacher has insisted that following incidents in which teachers have been assaulted — one student is reported to have stabbed a teacher with a pen — and there were two rapes on the compound, “some teachers are just too afraid to discipline the students for fear of being attacked.” Two other factors noted by the teacher are also disturbing — students who continue gambling, even when the Principal walks by, and her assertion that the even more shocking student behaviour was covered up by the Ministry of Education.

There have been too many not dissimilar reports with respect to some of the other secondary schools in the country for the Education Ministry to appear to be covering up what are not only major infractions of what constitutes acceptable behaviour at schools, but clear violations of the law as well. The Ministry has to draw a line between what within reason it can be expected to handle and unmistakable lawbreaking which, incidentally, should be dealt with by the law enforcement agencies.

Schoolchildren who push drugs, attend school armed with knives and other weapons and have access to guns, have stepped across the boundary of misbehaviour which can readily be handled by the Principal and staff and by educational counsellors into the preserve of the Police. The stage reached by a gun or knife-toting student or a drug pusher or rapist is not properly within the province of the school or the educational counsellor. Instead, the counsellor should be called in early and parents notified, when there are incipient signs of errant behaviour, for example, bullying, disrepsect of the teacher, disruptive behaviour, among others.

There may be problems at home and/or feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem which can be properly tackled early. Teachers should have as part of their training the ability to recognise problems early, before they are allowed to develop into the behaviour described by the Tranquillity teacher. The teacher who spoke out did not comment on whether or not methods of early detection and correction had formed a part of Tranquillity’s dealing with problems. However, the first and principal responsibility for a child’s behaviour is that of the parents, and the sooner this is realised the better.