‘If your child has no fear of how their parent will react to their behaviour, trust me, they will have no care about how a teacher reacts’ – Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly
By Prior Beharry
EDUCATION Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly says that violence in schools is being carried out by a loud minority.
Speaking at a People’s National Movement (PNM) meeting in Barataria on Thursday, she said when school violence goes viral on social media it looks like the entire school system was in disarray.
She said during the Covid-19 pandemic when students were in online classes they became intolerant when they returned to physical classes.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said Covid-19 exacerbated the situation of violence in schools as students lost the discipline of being in class.
She added, “Some of them haven’t regained it yet.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said, “Our students lost the ability of being tolerant with each other. They lost the ability to be interested of what happened in school. They were interested in so many things for two years they lost that ability.”
She added, “Cyber-bullying started to impact the physical school now. People were getting into squabbles online, On Facebook, on Instagram, on WhatsApp chats and that now was coming into the physical school.
“So they fighting in school and when you find out the reason for the fight it’s something that happened on social media.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said some children lost family members such as their grandmothers during Covid-19 and experienced grief and went into survival mode.
She said many children went to work during Covid to help their families and parents lost the discipline of having children in school.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said a survey done last month showed that since schools opened physically in April 2022, of the 819 schools, 47 (six primary and 41 secondary schools) indicated that they had students who were suspended three or more times. She said this was 0.05% of the schools in Trinidad and Tobago.
She said 142 out of the more than 200,000 students in the nation’s schools had been suspended more than three times. She said that was 0.0007%.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said, “Why is this important to mention? It’s because we sometimes feel that the entire system everybody is involved in this behaviour. That’s not true. It’s a minority but it’s a loud minority.”
She said, “When we see these videos and they are multiplied many times that you start to feel that all is lost. But that’s not so.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly there were positives happening in schools including the recent awarding of 100 scholarships and 500 bursaries for which applications will come out next week.
She said for these bursaries, students have their tuition paid for and also get personal maintenance and book allowances.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said while these were positives one fight will drown them out.
The St Ann’s East MP said the Education Ministry was using the Student Support Services which comprises 800 staff members including guidance counsellors, student aides, special education instructors, psychologists and behavioural specialists.
She said every year more than 20,000 students are referred to the Student Support Services
Dr Gadsby-Dolly called on parents to take responsibility for their children.
She said, “Like charity, discipline begins at home. If your child has no fear of how their parent will react to their behaviour, trust me, they will have no care about how a teacher reacts. You as the parent, we have to hold the standard for our children.
“A teacher cannot fix what a parent allowed to become broken over many years. If we don’t hold the mantle and take back our children, we are going to lose them.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said 28 per cent of families in T&T were single-parent with the majority women.
She said that 60% of boys in YTC came from single-parent homes.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said “Single moms, we have to do better, we have to work harder, the future of our country depends on us.”
She also called on fathers to stand up and be counted and fulfil their roles as parents.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said there was a sharp correlation between academic performance and school indiscipline.
She said students would be engaged to assistance students and stop them from a negative path.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said there was a remedial education programme for students and after-school classes in 80 primary schools.
She said, “We have looked at the indiscipline, we have looked at the performance and we have chosen 106 schools, 80 primary and 26 secondary schools, that we are paying sharp focus on. We are looking at those schools, we monitoring them and we are investing in those schools because if we can help those children we can help the country.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said there was also teacher training to deal with children as principals were now not only being challenged by students but by parents and so had to learn conflict resolution.
