Gaston Browne backs Kamla on violent students: ‘Hot up those parents’

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has thrown his sup­port be­hind Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s tough stance on vi­o­lent and dis­rup­tive stu­dents, sug­gest­ing at­ten­tion should in­stead be placed on par­ents who are “rais­ing crim­i­nals” in their homes.

Browne made the com­ment while shar­ing a Guardian Me­dia re­port on Per­sad-Bisses­sar dou­bling down on her call for vi­o­lent and per­sis­tent­ly dis­rup­tive stu­dents to be re­moved from schools.

“En­dorsed. Send them to hot up those par­ents who are rais­ing crim­i­nals homes in­stead,” Browne wrote in the cap­tion ac­com­pa­ny­ing the sto­ry.

PM Browne adds a re­gion­al voice of sup­port to Per­sad-Bisses­sar as her po­si­tion con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate de­bate among ed­u­ca­tors, par­ents and po­lit­i­cal fig­ures in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­ject­ed crit­i­cism of her ap­proach and chal­lenged those op­posed to re­mov­ing vi­o­lent stu­dents from schools to take them in­to their own homes.

“I in­vite those of you who are against the re­moval of vi­o­lent, dis­re­spect­ful stu­dents from schools to vol­un­teer to take them in­to your own homes, with your own fam­i­lies, and deal with them,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter ar­gued that thou­sands of stu­dents at­tend school fear­ing they could be beat­en, robbed, ha­rassed or ter­rorised by oth­er stu­dents and said well-be­haved chil­dren should not be forced to suf­fer be­cause of vi­o­lent class­mates.

Her lat­est com­ments fol­lowed a back-to-school mes­sage on Sun­day in which she urged teach­ers and prin­ci­pals to adopt a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to dis­re­spect­ful and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told teach­ers that if stu­dents re­fused to be­have and their par­ents ig­nored con­cerns raised about them, the chil­dren should be sent home for their par­ents to deal with.

She has al­so in­sist­ed that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for dis­ci­plin­ing chil­dren rests pri­mar­i­ly with par­ents and not teach­ers or the State.

The po­si­tion has drawn con­cern from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA).

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe has ques­tioned what would hap­pen to dis­rup­tive stu­dents if they were sim­ply sent home with­out ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­ven­tions, while NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art has said that al­though the as­so­ci­a­tion sup­ports calls for stu­dents to re­spect teach­ers and take their ed­u­ca­tion se­ri­ous­ly, re­mov­ing them from school rais­es con­cerns.

For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has al­so ques­tioned whether send­ing mis­be­hav­ing stu­dents home would solve the un­der­ly­ing prob­lem.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, has re­mained firm, ac­cus­ing TTUTA, the NPTA and the Op­po­si­tion PNM of fail­ing to of­fer ad­e­quate so­lu­tions to pro­tect teach­ers and stu­dents from vi­o­lence.

The de­bate comes as po­lice da­ta shows an in­crease in re­port­ed fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin said at least 27 fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren were re­port­ed in 2025, com­pared with at least 36 so far in 2026.

Po­lice have in­di­cat­ed that while greater vis­i­bil­i­ty may be re­quired in ar­eas where stu­dents con­gre­gate, the TTPS in­tends to place greater em­pha­sis on so­cial in­ter­ven­tion and iden­ti­fy­ing the root caus­es of stu­dent vi­o­lence.