Alarm bells ring over school violence; 2,000 suspension in one term

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Near­ly 2,000 stu­dents were sus­pend­ed in a sin­gle school term dur­ing the 2021/2022 aca­d­e­m­ic year—a star­tling in­di­ca­tor of ris­ing dis­ci­pline chal­lenges in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

A break­down of the fig­ures doc­u­ment­ed in the 2022 Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix showed that be­tween April 19 and Ju­ly 1, a to­tal of 1,970 stu­dents—1,339 boys and 631 girls—were dis­ci­plined for a stag­ger­ing 29 dif­fer­ent of­fences.

These in­clude se­ri­ous breach­es such as gam­bling, pos­ses­sion of drugs and al­co­hol, van­dal­ism, rob­bery, ex­tor­tion, cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, as well as dis­rup­tive con­duct and in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour.

Most alarm­ing of all, fight­ing with­out weapons ac­count­ed for the largest num­ber of sus­pen­sions, with 398 stu­dents (256 males and 142 fe­males) re­moved from class­rooms for this of­fence alone.

Pos­ses­sion/use of to­bac­co and va­p­ing prod­ucts led to 235 stu­dents (184 males and 51 fe­males) fac­ing sus­pen­sions, mak­ing it the sec­ond most com­mon rea­son for sus­pen­sion.

Trail­ing in third, 194 stu­dents were sus­pend­ed for as­sault with­out weapons. Dis­re­spect and de­fi­ance to­ward au­thor­i­ty ranked fourth, with 157 stu­dents fac­ing sus­pen­sion.

The doc­u­ment al­so showed that 29 stu­dents–13 fe­males and 16 males–had been sus­pend­ed for fight­ing with weapons.

A to­tal of 41 male and 34 fe­male stu­dents were sus­pend­ed for sex­u­al mis­con­duct, while 74 stu­dents faced sus­pen­sion for lewd or in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 91 stu­dents were sus­pend­ed for dis­or­der­ly and dis­rup­tive con­duct.

Al­though bul­ly­ing re­mains wide­spread in many schools, on­ly 31 male and 20 fe­male stu­dents were sus­pend­ed for bul­ly­ing or in­tim­i­da­tion.

A fur­ther 26 stu­dents faced sus­pen­sion for cy­ber­bul­ly­ing.

The re­port al­so re­vealed that, of the 11 stu­dents sus­pend­ed for ex­tor­tion and ‘tax­ing’, nine were male.

The 1,970 sus­pen­sions, how­ev­er, are a small fig­ure com­pared to the as­tound­ing 21,661 stu­dents who were sus­pend­ed be­tween 2022 and June of 2025, ac­cord­ing to da­ta pro­vid­ed by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath last month.

These num­bers paint a trou­bling pic­ture of the chal­lenges fac­ing our schools and high­light an ur­gent need for stronger mea­sures to re­store dis­ci­pline and safe­ty.

Dowlath’s sta­tis­tics came on the heels of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to school vi­o­lence, vow­ing that stu­dents caught as­sault­ing oth­er stu­dents, teach­ers, and prin­ci­pals will be ex­pelled.

“I want par­ents and stu­dents to lis­ten very care­ful­ly, if your child as­saults or bat­ters an­oth­er child, they will be ex­pelled and will face the full brunt of the law. They will be ar­rest­ed,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said all acts of school vi­o­lence must be re­ferred to the po­lice for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, and stu­dents who record and share footage of school vi­o­lence will be sus­pend­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment fol­lowed the cir­cu­la­tion of a vi­ral video show­ing five Port-of-Spain stu­dents in­volved in a bru­tal, pre­med­i­tat­ed at­tack on a fe­male school­mate on June 3. She was hos­pi­talised with mul­ti­ple in­juries.

The as­sault, which took place in­side the school’s bath­room, was filmed by by­standers.

Vi­o­lence among stu­dents has be­come a grow­ing con­cern, with the pub­lic ask­ing when these vi­cious fights will end.

Vi­o­lence surges af­ter COVID

Weigh­ing in on the school vi­o­lence, for­mer T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Da­vanand Sinanan told the Sun­day Guardian that school vi­o­lence is a re­flec­tion of the wider so­ci­ety.

“We don’t ex­pect them (stu­dents) to leave those neg­a­tive emo­tions and be­hav­iours at the gate when they en­ter the school,” said Sinanan, who re­tired as prin­ci­pal of Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary School last year.

An ed­u­ca­tor for 35 years, Sinanan said he no­ticed a sharp spike in vi­o­lence among his stu­dents post-COVID.

Their at­ti­tudes and be­hav­iours had al­so changed.

“I used to be fed up sort­ing out con­flicts. Every lit­tle dis­agree­ment would es­ca­late in­to a ver­bal and then a phys­i­cal con­flict. So much so that with­in the first term of re­sump­tion of school af­ter COVID, I had to beg Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD) to come in as a team of six guid­ance of­fi­cers be­cause we need­ed to make some strate­gic in­ter­ven­tions.”

Sinanan set aside a week of class­es to re­solve the con­stant fights and con­flicts, many of which start­ed by fe­male stu­dents as a re­sult of jeal­ousy is­sues or so­cial me­dia posts.

SSSD had to work with each class in­di­vid­u­al­ly.

“It was over­whelm­ing. The whole en­vi­ron­ment be­came so dis­rup­tive.”

Sinanan blamed some par­ents for the stu­dents’ ag­gres­sion.

“The home is the gen­e­sis of the be­hav­iour. We have been say­ing that for a long time. Par­ents must be held ac­count­able for the be­hav­iour of the child. They are the ones ab­di­cat­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the prop­er up­bring­ing of the child.”

Sec­tion 56 (1) of the Chil­dren Act states that where a child is charged with an of­fence, the par­ent, guardian or per­son re­spon­si­ble for the child may be or­dered by the court to pay a fine, dam­ages or costs.

Sinanan said we need to get pro­vi­sions in the act ac­ti­vat­ed to send a mes­sage to par­ents and guardians that they are falling short.

“The State can­not pick up the slack.”

He said many schools are fac­ing push­back from par­ents rather than sup­port.

Some par­ents, Sinanan said, don’t see their chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion as a pri­or­i­ty.

“I’ve had to put par­ents out of my of­fice. I had to ad­mon­ish par­ents and tell them they are do­ing a ter­ri­ble job. Many times, par­ents and guardians would come and, in your pres­ence, val­i­date the of­fend­ing be­hav­iour of the child. They don’t give their chil­dren wrong. When the child sees that … the of­fend­ing be­hav­iour is re­in­forced.”

Rather than cor­rect the child’s wrong­do­ing, Sinanan said, the par­ent would ac­cuse the school of pick­ing on their child.

“I have been ac­cused on many oc­ca­sions in Pa­lo Seco of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.”

On many oc­ca­sions, Sinanan said, par­ents threat­ened to re­port him to the min­istry when he ap­plied the law.

He said im­moral be­hav­iours and in­dis­ci­pline have be­come so­cial­ly ac­cept­able.

Sinanan said sus­pend­ing stu­dents was a last re­sort for him.

In­stead, he in­sti­tut­ed a pro­gramme where an un­ruly or de­viant stu­dent pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice in the school with con­sent from their par­ents or guardians.

“And it worked well,” he added.

While it was sug­gest­ed that more guid­ance of­fi­cers and so­cial work­ers be re­tained to deal with the vi­o­lence, Sinanan said this would not solve the prob­lem.

“The is­sue of cur­ricu­lum re­form has to be ad­dressed. The one-cap-fits-all ap­proach to ed­u­ca­tion has nev­er worked and nev­er will. So your whole premise for ed­u­ca­tion has to be re­viewed.”

Sup­port sys­tems dwin­dling–TTUTA

TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said the Gov­ern­ment, NGOs, com­mu­ni­ty groups, and faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions must ap­proach school vi­o­lence from mul­ti­ple an­gles.

He not­ed that, in the past, sports and cul­tur­al clubs played a key role in steer­ing stu­dents along the right path.

How­ev­er, he lament­ed that these types of in­ter­ven­tions have been steadi­ly fad­ing.

In 2023, then ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly stat­ed that Cab­i­net had made it manda­to­ry to put un­ruly stu­dents in the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT). While Lum Kin sup­ports this ini­tia­tive, he said there was a set­back.

“One of the chal­lenges with­in Mi­LAT is the leg­is­la­tion. It is our un­der­stand­ing that they (stu­dents) can on­ly be en­rolled when they have at­tained the age of 16. So, if you sus­pend or ex­pel stu­dents who are younger than 16 years, how are you pro­vid­ing ref­or­ma­tion?”

He said sus­pend­ed stu­dents should not be sent in­to an en­vi­ron­ment from which they came.

Lum Kin de­scribed the school vi­o­lence fig­ures as alarm­ing.

“We hon­est­ly be­lieve that when you have sta­tis­tics like that.

It should dri­ve pol­i­cy. Min­is­ters be­long to a Cab­i­net, and Cab­i­net col­leagues are sup­posed to be work­ing in tan­dem with each oth­er.”

Mean­while, An­tho­ny Gar­cia boast­ed that un­der his tenure as ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, no stu­dent was ex­pelled be­cause he sup­port­ed the doc­trine that every child de­serves an ed­u­ca­tion, while school vi­o­lence was rel­a­tive­ly low.

The cur­tail­ment of school vi­o­lence, he said, was a re­sult of work­ing with par­ents and the po­lice.

He said that be­fore a sus­pend­ed stu­dent is re­turned to their class­room, they must be as­sessed by a team of pro­fes­sion­als to en­sure re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Youth men­tor dis­heart­ened:

We had a so­lu­tion, but were left to beg for sup­port

Re­tired su­per­in­ten­dent Jer­ry Bap­tiste, who suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged a po­lice youth club in San­gre Grande in 2012, said he was dis­heart­ened by the lev­el of school vi­o­lence, es­pe­cial­ly among fe­males.

Bap­tiste, 72, was tasked with trans­form­ing the lives of dozens of sus­pend­ed sec­ondary stu­dents from Ari­ma to far-flung To­co.

Par­ents and guardians of stu­dents were al­so man­dat­ed to at­tend work­shops and sem­i­nars to fos­ter a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship with their chil­dren.

These ses­sions were su­per­vised by re­tired prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, po­lice of­fi­cers and psy­chol­o­gists.

Each stu­dent, Bap­tiste said, had to show their sense of pur­pose.

“When we worked with the stu­dents and par­ents, we saw a dras­tic change. It was a suc­cess be­cause many of those delin­quent chil­dren came back to thank me for turn­ing their lives around. It did reap re­wards.”

Be­fore his re­tire­ment in 2018, Bap­tiste said he be­came dis­il­lu­sioned as the club had to beg for meals for the chil­dren and sta­tionery to keep the pro­gramme func­tion­al.

“It was hurt­ful to know you had a so­lu­tion, and it was not sup­port­ed.”

Al­though the club is still in op­er­a­tion, Bap­tiste said its in­take of stu­dents has dwin­dled.

Stu­dent sus­pen­sions by year

2004 to 2010-11,000

2012-2,200

2013-1,709

2014-4,201

2015-5,329

2016-3,940

2017-2,486

2019-2,529

2022 to June 2025-21,661