NPTA supports Govt’s plan to restrict children’s social media use

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

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As Par­lia­ment pre­pares to de­bate laws af­fect­ing school vi­o­lence, parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and chil­dren’s ac­cess to so­cial me­dia, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) says it in­tends to make its voice heard.

Speak­ing at the NPTA’s 66th an­nu­al mid-year con­ven­tion at the Princes Town East Sec­ondary School on Sat­ur­day, pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art point­ed to three pieces of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion he be­lieves will shape the fu­tures of par­ents and chil­dren. These are amend­ments to mod­ernise the Ed­u­ca­tion Act, a parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty frame­work aimed at tack­ling school vi­o­lence and mea­sures reg­u­lat­ing so­cial me­dia use by chil­dren un­der the age of 12.

Dur­ing a state­ment in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said a parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty frame­work would be among the key pieces of leg­is­la­tion her ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to in­tro­duce dur­ing the cur­rent par­lia­men­tary term. She said the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to make par­ents or guardians more legal­ly ac­count­able for the be­hav­iour and wel­fare of their chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly where chil­dren are in­volved in vi­o­lence, bul­ly­ing, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, or per­sis­tent mis­con­duct.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia use for chil­dren un­der age 12 will al­so be on Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da.

Stew­art said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment of the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive pro­gramme dur­ing the open­ing of the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment sig­nalled that sev­er­al is­sues af­fect­ing par­ents and chil­dren would soon come to the fore­front.

He de­scribed the pro­posed changes to the Ed­u­ca­tion Act as over­due but nec­es­sary.

Stew­art al­so said the pro­posed so­cial me­dia re­stric­tions for chil­dren were not un­prece­dent­ed.

“And this is noth­ing new. In Aus­tralia and in France, those laws are al­ready in place be­cause par­ents, when you are in your bed­room, and your 11-year-old is in his or her bed­room un­der the blan­ket with his or her de­vice, you would be amazed to know what is tak­ing place at 1 am, 2 am, 3 am,” Stew­art said.

He al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the long­stand­ing is­sue of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for school­child­ren and com­muters who de­pend on maxi taxis. Re­fer­ring to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­ten­tion to meet with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the maxi taxi in­dus­try, fol­low­ing their protest ac­tion last week, Stew­art urged the min­is­ters of trans­port and ed­u­ca­tion to par­tic­i­pate in those dis­cus­sions be­fore an­oth­er strike oc­curs with­out warn­ing.

Ad­dress­ing school vi­o­lence and the pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers in schools, Stew­art said in­ter­ven­tions must ex­tend be­yond school com­pounds. He said stake­hold­ers need­ed to get in­to homes and com­mu­ni­ties, de­scrib­ing schools as a mi­cro­cosm of what is tak­ing place in so­ci­ety.

Stew­art urged par­ents to pay close at­ten­tion to the leg­isla­tive dis­cus­sions ahead, adding that the NPTA in­tend­ed to make its views known through­out the par­lia­men­tary term.

Fea­ture speak­er, Jus­tice Gillian Lucky, al­so em­pha­sised the crit­i­cal role par­ents, teach­ers and com­mu­ni­ties play in the de­vel­op­ment and wel­fare of chil­dren.

Lucky said ed­u­ca­tion had long been recog­nised as a pil­lar of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, not­ing that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments had ac­knowl­edged its im­por­tance. She re­called that Per­sad-Bisses­sar, dur­ing her tenure as ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, had pro­mot­ed the prin­ci­ple that no child should be left be­hind. She de­scribed par­ent-teacher as­so­ci­a­tions as vi­tal part­ners in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“While ed­u­ca­tion is the key to un­lock­ing the door, the NPTA is guard­ing the door as the stew­ards,” Lucky said, adding that with­out par­ent-teacher as­so­ci­a­tions, the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem would strug­gle to func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly.

Draw­ing on his­tor­i­cal records, Lucky said col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween teach­ers and par­ents had been recog­nised for decades. She re­ferred to ac­tions tak­en in 1960 by then ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter John Don­ald­son, and not­ed that leg­is­la­tion en­act­ed in 1976 recog­nised the role of stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing re­li­gious bod­ies, in ed­u­ca­tion.

Lucky said pre­serv­ing the vis­i­bil­i­ty and rel­e­vance of PTAs re­mained im­por­tant as schools con­front mod­ern chal­lenges such as school vi­o­lence, bul­ly­ing and the in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia. She stressed that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for chil­dren’s wel­fare ex­tends be­yond schools and in­volves the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing con­cerns about stu­dent be­hav­iour, bul­ly­ing and oth­er dis­ci­pli­nary is­sues, Lucky said pos­i­tive ex­am­ples al­so de­served recog­ni­tion.

“But do we take the time to high­light the par­ents, guardians, chil­dren and teach­ers who are get­ting it right? How will we help those at risk, pre­sent­ing prob­lems be­fore they ex­ist? And that is where we must all be on board, fo­cused on our du­ty with one ac­cord, en­abling par­ents, guardians and teach­ers to­geth­er to pro­vide all of our chil­dren with a bril­liant fu­ture.”

Lucky al­so called for stronger col­lab­o­ra­tion among schools, par­tic­u­lar­ly those fac­ing un­equal ac­cess to re­sources and op­por­tu­ni­ties. Re­call­ing her moth­er’s in­volve­ment in par­ent ad­vo­ca­cy groups, Lucky said some schools in re­mote ar­eas con­tin­ue to strug­gle while oth­ers are bet­ter po­si­tioned. She sug­gest­ed schools with greater re­sources could part­ner with those fac­ing chal­lenges.

“We need to start twin­ning, peo­ple. If we are go­ing to move to­geth­er, if we are leav­ing no­body be­hind, put them on your back and run with them,” she said.

Lucky al­so en­cour­aged stake­hold­ers to en­gage young peo­ple on plat­forms they use reg­u­lar­ly, in­clud­ing so­cial me­dia.