By Sue-Ann Wayow

LOCKING up school children for acts of violence cannot be the solution to a national problem.

This is the opinion of former education minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly who said Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has done nothing new by stating that acts of school violence would be punishable by expulsion and her statements were “knee-jerked.”

In a Facebook post, Dr Gadsby-Dolly said, “The Prime Minister seems to be espousing a retrograde policy- simply lock up misbehaving young people.”

She asked, “While this may feel like immediate justice, what is the next step for these youth, who will now have criminal records? Also relevant is the fact that there is a serious ethnic and geographic bias associated with school violence. What of those implications? Has the prime minister considered this?”

“Much more is expected from a prime minister who served as a former minister of education. Locking up young people cannot be your plan,”-  Dr Gadsby-Dolly said.

Persad-Bissessar have been praised by some for her statements in dealing with school indiscipline made at her post Cabinet media briefing last week.

But Dr Gadsby-Dolly stated that since 2022, under the People’s National Movement (PNM) several initiatives, working in tandem, proved successful at reducing the level of violence in schools when pupils returned physically from the Covid-19 lockdown.

 She said it was a work in progress, which included resourcing schools with the highest levels of violence with dedicated social workers and guidance counsellors, involving community police in schools to assist with discipline, regular mentorship sessions, curriculum interventions, the incorporation of cultural transformation activities, teacher training, and introduction of restorative practices.

A partnership with SERVOL was also established to absorb the expelled students, or those at risk of expulsion, so they would have a chance at reform in a different environment.

Dr Gadsby-Dolly said if the government now led by Persad-Bissessar had not stopped the youth programmes like Military-Led Academic Training (MiLAT) Programme and Military-Led Youth Programme of Apprenticeship and Reorientation Training (MYPART), the prime minister would have been able to make a much more reasoned intervention, like the expansion of these programs to accommodate those who are expelled.

Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Phillip Watts publicly stated that the Milat and Mypart programme were actually suspended under the PNM government and restarted by the Persad-Bissessar administration noting that both were now under the Ministry of Defence.

At the post-Cabinet briefing, Defence Minister Wayne Sturge said the programmes may need to be expanded to address the influx of school violence.

Dr Gadsby-Dolly also said it has been reported that the Minister of Education has given orders to stop the Restorative Practices Initiative in schools which was launched in 11 schools in 2023.

“The Minister should confirm whether this allegation is true, and whether trained professionals who were helping students with anger management and conflict resolution are, in fact, now facing termination,” she said.

AZP News has reached out to Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath for a comment.