Padarath: Government pursuing parental responsibility law

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion as it throws its sup­port be­hind Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s tough stance on school vi­o­lence and stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day con­firmed that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion is be­ing de­vel­oped, say­ing its pol­i­cy frame­work is cur­rent­ly un­der re­view and will ul­ti­mate­ly in­form the con­tents of a Bill to be brought be­fore Par­lia­ment.

Padarath, who ad­vo­cat­ed for parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion while the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) was in Op­po­si­tion, said the Gov­ern­ment was throw­ing its “full weight” be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing that stu­dents who can­not be­have in the na­tion’s schools should be sent home to their par­ents.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is not play­ing, you go to school to learn not fight,” Padarath said in a me­dia re­lease.

He ar­gued that par­ents of trou­bled chil­dren must stop “palm­ing off their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty” and ex­pect­ing the State and teach­ers to dis­ci­pline their chil­dren.

“Par­ents can­not ab­di­cate their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ex­pect the state to dis­ci­pline their chil­dren while they par­ty, fete and go about their mer­ry way,” he said.

Padarath said this had been al­lowed to con­tin­ue for too long, par­tic­u­lar­ly in trou­bled and de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties.

His com­ments come amid an in­ten­si­fy­ing na­tion­al de­bate over Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ap­proach to school vi­o­lence.

The Prime Min­is­ter has warned that stu­dents who re­peat­ed­ly en­gage in vi­o­lent and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour should be re­moved from schools, ar­gu­ing that the rights and safe­ty of law-abid­ing stu­dents and teach­ers must al­so be pro­tect­ed.

Padarath said the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion rep­re­sent­ed the type of lead­er­ship re­quired to con­front the prob­lem and would be backed by Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and leg­is­la­tion.

He al­so took aim at the Op­po­si­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), ac­cus­ing them of fail­ing to ad­vance mean­ing­ful so­lu­tions to school vi­o­lence over the past decade.

Padarath said some crit­ics had “sat on their hands” as vi­o­lence es­ca­lat­ed un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He al­so ac­cused TTUTA and the NPTA of fail­ing to do enough while chil­dren suf­fered from vi­o­lence, in­vok­ing the case of school­boy Jay­den Lalchan.

Padarath said while the Gov­ern­ment re­spect­ed dif­fer­ing views, it would not al­low crit­ics to go “un­scathed” for what he de­scribed as hypocrisy on crit­i­cal na­tion­al is­sues.

He ac­cused some of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­trac­tors of be­ing sym­pa­thet­ic to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and ar­gued that po­lit­i­cal crit­i­cism would not change the facts sur­round­ing school vi­o­lence.

Padarath said the coun­try need­ed to move away from what he de­scribed as “hushed” con­ver­sa­tions on dif­fi­cult na­tion­al is­sues.

“Get used to the frank, bru­tal­ly hon­est and prac­ti­cal ap­proach of the Prime Min­is­ter. This is what Trinidad and To­ba­go needs at this time,” he said.

The con­tro­ver­sy comes as po­lice sta­tis­tics show an in­crease in re­port­ed fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ad­min­is­tra­tion) Ju­nior Ben­jamin said this week that at least 27 fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren were re­port­ed in 2025, com­pared with at least 36 so far this year.

Ben­jamin said po­lice are analysing the fig­ures to iden­ti­fy pat­terns and lo­ca­tions, not­ing that some con­fronta­tions ap­pear to be mov­ing from school com­pounds on­to sur­round­ing streets.

How­ev­er, he said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in­tends to place greater em­pha­sis on so­cial in­ter­ven­tion and ad­dress­ing the un­der­ly­ing caus­es of stu­dent vi­o­lence rather than re­ly­ing pri­mar­i­ly on en­force­ment.

Padarath ac­knowl­edged that Trinidad and To­ba­go has spent decades de­vel­op­ing pro­grammes and poli­cies aimed at help­ing at-risk youth but ar­gued that parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty re­mains cen­tral to ad­dress­ing the prob­lem.

“As a na­tion we must come to the re­al­iza­tion that de­spite all the pro­grams and poli­cies, if you as a par­ent can­not put a han­dle on your child's be­hav­iour, then you have failed your child,” he said.

With Par­lia­ment due to re­sume on Fri­day fol­low­ing its mid-year break, Padarath al­so sig­nalled that the parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­pos­al would form part of a broad­er leg­isla­tive push by the Gov­ern­ment.

He said he ex­pect­ed an up­com­ing par­lia­men­tary agen­da filled with “pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion” aimed par­tic­u­lar­ly at ad­dress­ing the di­rec­tion in which the coun­try’s youth pop­u­la­tion is head­ing.