NPTA, TTUTA take issue with PM’s call

Jesse Ramdeo & Ke­jan Haynes

Se­nior re­porter

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The Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and oth­er stake­hold­ers have pushed back against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sug­ges­tion that per­sis­tent­ly dis­rup­tive stu­dents be sent home as part of a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to school in­dis­ci­pline.

The Prime Min­is­ter made the pro­pos­al in a state­ment on Sun­day ahead of the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, urg­ing schools to adopt a tougher stance to­ward dis­rup­tive stu­dents and un­co­op­er­a­tive par­ents.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia as stu­dents re­turned to class­rooms yes­ter­day, NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion ful­ly sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s em­pha­sis on the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion but was con­cerned about her pro­posed re­sponse to per­sis­tent in­dis­ci­pline.

“The Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion ful­ly sup­ports the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­peal to take ed­u­ca­tion se­ri­ous­ly, to en­cour­age our stu­dents to be dis­ci­plined, re­spect their teach­ers and school staff, and recog­nise that ed­u­ca­tion pro­vides greater op­por­tu­ni­ties in life,” Stew­art said.

“How­ev­er, we find the tone of the Prime Min­is­ter’s mes­sage con­cern­ing send­ing our chil­dren home be­cause of in­dis­ci­pline some­what dis­con­cert­ing.”

Stew­art ar­gued that re­mov­ing stu­dents from school would not ad­dress the root caus­es of their be­hav­iour and could cre­ate ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges for chil­dren and par­ents.

“As a mat­ter of fact, it has the ten­den­cy to breed ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges not on­ly for the chil­dren but for the par­ents as well,” he said.

“How are we mov­ing the prob­lem from the school to the home with­out try­ing to ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing is­sues that this child is fac­ing?”

His con­cerns were echoed by coun­selling psy­chol­o­gist Dr Krys­tal-Jane Ve­rasam­my, who said dis­ci­pline and ac­count­abil­i­ty are nec­es­sary but must be bal­anced with un­der­stand­ing and sup­port.

“The is­sue of dis­ci­pline in schools is an im­por­tant one, as we have seen the num­ber of school bul­ly­ing in­ci­dents over the years. Schools need clear bound­aries and stu­dents need to be ac­count­able for dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour,” Ve­rasam­my said.

“At the same time, from a child-cen­tred psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, I would en­cour­age us to look at dis­ci­pline along­side un­der­stand­ing.”

She said per­sis­tent mis­be­hav­iour should prompt ed­u­ca­tors and par­ents to ex­am­ine what may be dri­ving a child’s ac­tions while main­tain­ing ap­pro­pri­ate con­se­quences.

Both Stew­art and Ve­rasam­my stressed the need for stronger sup­port ser­vices with­in schools.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe al­so ques­tioned what would hap­pen to stu­dents sent home from school.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Ashe asked: “The Prime Min­is­ter is say­ing chil­dren will be sent home. Sent home to do what? To watch ca­ble TV, to be on Face­book, to be on so­cial me­dia?”

He said with­out mean­ing­ful in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes, the coun­try risked cre­at­ing larg­er so­cial prob­lems.

“When you don’t put any­thing in place, any so­cial pro­gramme that would pro­vide some restora­tion to how they be­have and al­low them to be­come good and pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens, what are we cre­at­ing? Who are we cre­at­ing? We’re cre­at­ing mon­sters.”

Ashe al­so warned that end­ing con­tracts for sup­port per­son­nel could un­der­mine progress made with at-risk stu­dents.

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s pro­pos­al, ar­gu­ing stu­dent mis­con­duct of­ten re­flects deep­er is­sues re­quir­ing in­ter­ven­tion.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of the ap­proach.

“Send mis­be­hav­ing chil­dren home? That’s the plan?” she asked.

She ar­gued that many chil­dren act out be­cause of chal­lenges such as hunger, abuse, un­di­ag­nosed learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, anger or ne­glect.

She warned that ex­clud­ing chil­dren from school with­out ad­dress­ing their un­der­ly­ing prob­lems could sim­ply shift the is­sue in­to the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

“Be­cause trust and be­lieve that they are not go­ing to stay home,” she said, sug­gest­ing some could end up “in the streets with guns, in the pris­ons, and in­side our homes.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly called for the restora­tion and ex­pan­sion of the SSSD, along with pro­grammes such as MI­LAT and youth camps.

“Send­ing mis­be­hav­ing chil­dren home will not cure the prob­lem of school dis­ci­pline. This is not about pol­i­tics; this is about the sal­va­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We must think deep­er.”

But hours lat­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so took to Face­book to de­fend her Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to school dis­ci­pline, hit­ting back at crit­ics.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar post­ed a video clip of Gads­by-Dol­ly speak­ing about school vi­o­lence dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In the clip, Gads­by-Dol­ly is heard say­ing many of the chil­dren in­volved in vi­o­lent in­ci­dents at schools had “PNM moth­ers and PNM fa­thers.”

Ref­er­enc­ing those re­marks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Why are per­sons now com­plain­ing about com­mon-sense ac­tion be­ing tak­en to pro­tect stu­dents and teach­ers when, all along, they knew about the prob­lems but did noth­ing to fix the sit­u­a­tion?”

She ar­gued that par­ents of well-be­haved stu­dents have grown in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed with their chil­dren be­ing ex­posed to bul­ly­ing, ha­rass­ment and abuse at school.

“Hard­work­ing, law-abid­ing par­ents are fed up with bul­lies ha­rass­ing and abus­ing their in­no­cent chil­dren at school,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­it­er­at­ed her view that par­ents must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour, in­sist­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can­not be shift­ed to teach­ers or the State.

“Nei­ther the State nor teach­ers are re­spon­si­ble for par­ent­ing your chil­dren. You made them, so you have to mind them,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said stu­dents could avoid dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion by obey­ing school rules and con­duct­ing them­selves ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

“The sim­ple an­swer to not be­ing sent home from school for bad be­hav­iour is to be­have re­spon­si­bly and re­spect­ful­ly, and study dili­gent­ly,” she said.

“This is as straight­for­ward as it gets.”