TTUTA calls for stronger response to school violence

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has called for stronger in­ter­ven­tions to ad­dress school vi­o­lence, say­ing bul­ly­ing, phys­i­cal as­saults and in­tim­i­da­tion have no place in schools.

The as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Bevin Ashe, made the call fol­low­ing the lat­est al­leged at­tack at Princes Town East Sec­ondary School, where a 15-year-old stu­dent re­port­ed­ly as­sault­ed an­oth­er pupil with a shov­el, leav­ing her hos­pi­talised.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ashe said TTUTA was aware of re­ports about the in­ci­dent but want­ed to ob­tain and ver­i­fy the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion be­fore com­ment­ing on the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances or any his­to­ry of com­plaints at the school.

“TTUTA does not sup­port, con­done or ex­cuse de­viant, vi­o­lent or dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour by stu­dents or any mem­ber of school per­son­nel,” Ashe said.

He said schools must be safe en­vi­ron­ments where stu­dents can learn and teach­ers can work with­out fear of vi­o­lence or in­tim­i­da­tion.

“The safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of every child and mem­ber of staff must re­main para­mount,” he said.

Ashe said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's Re­vised Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct 2026 pro­vid­ed a frame­work for ad­dress­ing stu­dent mis­con­duct, pro­mot­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and main­tain­ing safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

He called for the guide­lines to be im­ple­ment­ed con­sis­tent­ly and fair­ly, with ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Al­le­ga­tions of vi­o­lence, he said, must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed prompt­ly and thor­ough­ly, with ap­pro­pri­ate con­se­quences where wrong­do­ing is es­tab­lished.

How­ev­er, Ashe said dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion alone would not re­solve the prob­lem, point­ing to the need for coun­selling, stu­dent sup­port ser­vices, parental in­volve­ment and ear­ly iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of be­hav­iour­al chal­lenges.

“We must recog­nise that school vi­o­lence is not sim­ply a dis­ci­pli­nary is­sue; it is al­so a wider so­ci­etal con­cern,” he said, call­ing for a co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse in­volv­ing the Min­istry, par­ents, teach­ers, stu­dents and the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

The lat­est in­ci­dent has re­newed pub­lic con­cern about school vi­o­lence, with the in­jured stu­dent's grand­moth­er, Al­li­son Corinne Ham­let, call­ing on the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit to in­ter­vene.

Ham­let al­leged that the stu­dent ac­cused of the at­tack had pre­vi­ous­ly been re­port­ed for as­sault­ing and threat­en­ing oth­er chil­dren.

She said her grand­daugh­ter re­quired stitch­es to her ear and al­so suf­fered a bro­ken tooth and bruis­ing.

Ham­let al­so al­leged that an­oth­er par­ent had re­port­ed threats in­volv­ing a bot­tle of acid and threats to stab her daugh­ter.

Po­lice are al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports that stu­dents have been threat­ened with stab­bing or hav­ing muri­at­ic acid poured on them if they re­port in­ci­dents to the au­thor­i­ties.

The in­ci­dent fol­lows an at­tack on a 13-year-old Form One stu­dent at Ce­dros Sec­ondary School on Oc­to­ber 26.

The child sus­tained in­juries to both knees and was left limp­ing. The Min­istry sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed that one stu­dent had been sus­pend­ed for five days, while both stu­dents were re­ferred to the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has re­quest­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the lat­est in­ci­dent at Princes Town East Sec­ondary School.