Dowlath: 97 police officers deployed permanently to 50 schools

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There are cur­rent­ly 97 po­lice of­fi­cers de­ployed on a per­ma­nent ba­sis across all 50 schools iden­ti­fied by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry for School Ori­ent­ed Po­lice Unit (SOPU) of­fi­cers, ac­cord­ing to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath.

Dowlath gave the in­for­ma­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day in re­sponse to a ques­tion from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed the state­ment by the Ro­man Catholic De­nom­i­na­tion­al Board on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025, that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had failed to de­liv­er of­fi­cers of the TTPS to their schools, and al­so failed to iden­ti­fy the ba­sis up­on which the se­lect­ed RC schools had been as­signed po­lice of­fi­cers.

She asked Dowlath how many of the 50 schools iden­ti­fied by the min­istry to re­ceive po­lice of­fi­cers have, in fact, re­ceived such of­fi­cers and the cri­te­ria used to de­ter­mine which schools would re­ceive po­lice of­fi­cers. Gads­by-Dol­ly called for the num­ber of of­fi­cers ac­tu­al­ly de­ployed across the 50 schools and the du­ra­tion of train­ing they re­ceived be­fore be­ing de­ployed.

Dowlath, thank­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the orig­i­nal ini­tia­tive to in­tro­duce po­lice of­fi­cers in­to schools, said, “All 50 schools iden­ti­fied by the min­istry to re­ceive SOPU of­fi­cers have in fact re­ceived such of­fi­cers.”

He said the of­fi­cers are sup­port­ed by 46 field train­ing of­fi­cers.

Dowlath added, “The se­lec­tion of schools was based on da­ta re­lat­ed to school in­frac­tions and sus­pen­sions, in­for­ma­tion on the so­cio-en­vi­ron­men­tal con­text of the com­mu­ni­ties in which the schools are lo­cat­ed, as well as rec­om­men­da­tions from the TTPS. These fac­tors were used col­lec­tive­ly to de­ter­mine and tri­an­gu­late the place­ment of of­fi­cers.”

Dowlath said train­ing pro­vid­ed to the school-ori­ent­ed po­lice of­fi­cers falls di­rect­ly un­der the TTPS’s purview.

“These would have un­der­gone ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months of gen­er­al polic­ing train­ing, fol­lowed by an ad­di­tion­al two weeks of spe­cialised in­struc­tion spe­cif­ic to the School Ori­ent­ed po­lice of­fi­cers’ pro­gramme.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly, who cit­ed Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025, re­ports of a rat in­fes­ta­tion at the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s head of­fice, al­so asked what im­me­di­ate and long-term so­lu­tions have been tak­en to ad­dress this prob­lem and to en­sure the health and safe­ty of staff and vis­i­tors to the fa­cil­i­ty.

Dowlath said, “As I said be­fore and will say again, when we as­sumed of­fice, we in­her­it­ed sev­er­al se­ri­ous is­sues and this is just one of the many that were left for us to clean up.

“Fol­low­ing re­ports of ro­dent sight­ings, the min­istry, in con­sul­ta­tion with the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT), im­ple­ment­ed im­me­di­ate pest con­trol and san­i­ta­tion mea­sures through­out the min­istry’s Tow­ers A and B.”

He said the fol­low­ing ac­tions were tak­en:

• ↓Ro­dent bait­ing con­duct­ed on all floors of MoE Tow­ers A and B.

• ↓The MTS team re­moved all desk bins, and car­ried out thor­ough clean­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion of the premis­es.

• ↓Staff were re­mind­ed that food waste must not be dis­posed of in desk bins. All food waste is to be placed in the des­ig­nat­ed kitchen re­cep­ta­cles on­ly.

• ↓Staff were re­mind­ed that no food items were to be left with­in the of­fice overnight.

• ↓Staff must main­tain clean, or­der­ly work­sta­tions in sup­port of on­go­ing san­i­ta­tion and pest con­trol ef­forts.

• ↓Pub­lic health of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the min­istry on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, and no ev­i­dence of ro­dents was found.

Dowlath said the min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ude­COTT, al­so im­ple­ment­ed long-term, sus­tain­able so­lu­tions for man­ag­ing and pre­vent­ing fur­ther ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion: sealed all en­try points, in­stalled ad­di­tion­al ro­dent con­trol de­vices, which in­clude traps and trap-proof bait sta­tions in key ar­eas and es­tab­lished a dai­ly san­i­ta­tion and in­spec­tion sched­ule.

Gads­by-Dol­ly, who not­ed the Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025, date of re­ports, queried his state­ment on “in­her­it­ing” the prob­lem. Dowlath main­tained his re­ply.