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By Chantalé Fletcher
SCHOOL violence did not start in schools.
And it cannot be treated as a school problem.
So said political leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) Phillip Edward Alexander during a Facebook live on Friday.
Alexander said, “The situation with school violence did not start in the schools and cannot be treated as a school problem alone.”
He said, “Our society especially our poorer communities are crumbling. To many children do not find guidance at home as parents are either busy working multiple jobs to survive or in many cases fathers are absent, incarcerated or dead. So they are adding to the growing gang population as they are looking for somewhere to fit in and belong.”
He added, “We have to tackle all social ills to fix this one. The drivers of our broken society remain political corruption and the narco trade. Those have to be taken head-on if we as a country are going to survive.
“Securing the nation’s borders, unstuffing containers on the port, as well and measures to rein in rapacious banks bent on plunder through enforcement of proper financial-sector regulations and more banking competition.”
Alexander said, “The cost of living and the value of our dollar is pressing people into the ground.”
He also added that small and medium-sized businesses were also destroyed by a lack of credit in the economy.
Alexander said, “Our justice system is stalled trapping too many behind bars convicted of nothing.”
He said, “The Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) proposes a social development master plan that empowers the family to rebuild community – jobs, credit, adult education and creation of a prestige school situation for all through the abolition of SEA.”
He added that the entire children’s homes model has become corrupted as children were being used with state funds without accountability.
Alexander said, “Under our social development master plan, the ministry of education will come under the ministry of social development and all children are mapped and accounted for as long as they are minors.”
He added purpose-built tenure schools will have guidance counsellors and therapists to interact regularly with all children being from traditional homes or foster state homes especially those identified as difficult.
“Teachers and medical professionals were mandated by law to report any all suspicions of abuse,” Alexander added.
He said, “The PEP is a strong proponent of it taking a village to raise a child but in our case our village has been destroyed by greed.
“We need to face all of this as a society and end the nonsense of race voting infecting minds with hate and unite all our people under one flag.”
