As PM’s school violence comments spark backlash

AKASH SAMA­ROO

LEAD ED­I­TOR - POL­I­TICS

akash.sama­[email protected]

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Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing “dan­ger­ous­ly dis­con­nect­ed from re­al­i­ty,” af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that in­ci­dents of class­room vi­o­lence should re­sult in stu­dents be­ing ex­pelled.

This af­ter Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath re­vealed on Wednes­day that there has been a sharp in­crease in in­ci­dents of class­room vi­o­lence with a teacher present.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion ig­nores the deep­er so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges af­fect­ing many stu­dents and their fam­i­lies.

“The state­ment made by the Prime Min­is­ter on the is­sue of school vi­o­lence shows her ob­vi­ous dis­con­nect with re­al­i­ty and re­flects a dan­ger­ous lack of un­der­stand­ing of the com­plex cir­cum­stances fac­ing many of our na­tion’s chil­dren and fam­i­lies,” Beck­les said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that dis­ci­pline and re­spect must be main­tained in schools, the Op­po­si­tion Leader ar­gued that ex­pul­sion can­not be treat­ed as the pri­ma­ry so­lu­tion to be­hav­iour­al prob­lems.

“School vi­o­lence and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour rarely ex­ist in iso­la­tion,” she said.

“Very of­ten they are the man­i­fes­ta­tion of dif­fi­cul­ties at home, eco­nom­ic hard­ship, emo­tion­al trau­ma and so­cial pres­sures that young peo­ple strug­gle to nav­i­gate.”

Beck­les drew on her own child­hood ex­pe­ri­ence to un­der­score her point, say­ing many stu­dents come from dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances that should not de­ter­mine their fu­ture.

“I grew up in Bor­de Narve Vil­lage in a home with­out elec­tric­i­ty and with­out run­ning wa­ter. Like many chil­dren raised in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, chal­lenges some­times arose in school. But those cir­cum­stances did not de­fine my fu­ture, and they should not de­fine the fu­ture of any child in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Beck­les said.

She ar­gued that the role of Gov­ern­ment should be to sup­port strug­gling stu­dents.

“The role of a re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment is not to dis­card strug­gling stu­dents, but to guide, sup­port and re­ha­bil­i­tate them,” Beck­les said, not­ing that dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, it ex­pand­ed the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, the pro­gramme saw the hir­ing of more than 200 ad­di­tion­al so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors and restora­tive prac­ti­tion­ers to help schools deal with be­hav­iour­al chal­lenges. She claimed many of those staff mem­bers now face un­cer­tain­ty over the re­new­al of their con­tracts.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so linked be­hav­iour­al is­sues in schools to wider eco­nom­ic pres­sures af­fect­ing fam­i­lies.

“The cal­lous ac­tions of the UNC have placed thou­sands of par­ents across our coun­try un­der im­mense pres­sure,” she said.

“Many have lost their jobs, and some are strug­gling to pro­vide even the most ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties for their chil­dren. These re­al­i­ties in­evitably af­fect the emo­tion­al well-be­ing of young peo­ple and how they be­have and per­form in school.”

Beck­les fur­ther warned that pol­i­cy­mak­ers must al­so recog­nise the grow­ing in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia on stu­dent be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing ex­po­sure to vi­o­lent con­tent and on­line bul­ly­ing.

“Any se­ri­ous na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion about stu­dent dis­ci­pline must take these mod­ern re­al­i­ties in­to ac­count,” she said.

While con­ced­ing that ex­pul­sion may be nec­es­sary in ex­treme cir­cum­stances, Beck­les in­sist­ed it can­not be­come the cen­tral re­sponse to mis­con­duct.

“To­tal ex­pul­sion is not the an­swer. If we aban­don our chil­dren to­day, we will in­evitably face the con­se­quences to­mor­row,” she said.

Beck­les said she is pre­pared to en­gage di­rect­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter on the is­sue.

“I stand ready to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­cuss holis­tic so­lu­tions to the is­sue of school vi­o­lence,” she added.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter's re­marks on school in­dis­ci­pline have al­so led to a fierce clash of words on so­cial me­dia be­tween mem­bers of Par­lia­ment from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide.

The PM end­ed her state­ment yes­ter­day with a jab at the PNM.

"The on­ly job op­tions avail­able for per­sons who do not pass their ex­ams are low-pay­ing me­nial jobs or be­com­ing PNM MPs."

St Ann's East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, a for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment, did not take too kind­ly to that re­mark and post­ed on Face­book, "Kam­la...if you were not an old la­dy, I would tell you where to haul a body part which we all hold dear."

Gads­by-Dol­ly went on to de­scribe the PM's state­ment as "to­tal­ly dis­re­spect­ful and shame­ful."

How­ev­er, Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath re­spond­ed soon af­ter. Shar­ing Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly's post, he wrote, "I guess like Row­ley, she too shares this SICK PSY­CHOT­IC ob­ses­sion with peo­ple's body parts. Thanks though for prov­ing the PM cor­rect #dis­gust­ing­dol­ly."