The current school year began with much hope and excitement for many children eager to return to school. Unfortunately, it was also marred almost from the very beginning by numerous negative reports of student-on-student violence and at least one case of an alleged parent-teacher assault on school premises.
Sadly, as we near the end of the academic year, there have been yet more deeply disturbing reports of school violence. These most recent accounts involve serious student-on-teacher violence at more than one secondary school. Additional reports suggest that some schools almost feel as if they are under a violent siege by incorrigible students, some of whom exhibit gang-like bullying behaviour towards other pupils.
Back in May 2019, we were told by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, after a meeting of education stakeholders, that ‘government is taking a zero-tolerance stance to violence in the island’s schools’. Notably, the reported list of stakeholders in attendance did not include parental representation. Present were the then Minister of Education, Santia Bradshaw, other ministry officials, representatives of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union, Barbados Union of Teachers, Barbados Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, and the Association of Public Primary School Principals, as well as teachers, youth affairs and social services representatives, then Police Commissioner Tyrone Griffith, and Barbados Defence Force Chief of Staff, Colonel Glyne Grannum.
During the May 2019 meeting, the prime minister stated: “There can be no tolerance in this country for any child to believe that they are in a position to threaten or attack any teacher or their parents or any adult in this country. If we allow this to happen, we will be surrendering our country to lawlessness,” and noted that fewer than 200 students were guilty of acts of violence or deviant behaviour in schools.
A slew of initiatives was announced in 2019 for implementation to address violence in schools and to attempt remediation so that troubled students do not become captive to the criminal justice system:
– A residential facility similar to the Edna Nicholls Centre, which caters to troubled children.
– A committee to assist in stabilising and managing at-risk children.
– A legislative framework allowing the chief education officer, in the absence of the parent and following discussions with the student’s headteacher, social workers, and psychologists, to consent to intervention for a pupil.
– Additional guidance counsellors assigned to the schools deemed at greatest risk.
– Safety officers assigned to terminals and school routes to work with guidance counsellors in identifying pupils needing attention.
– Social workers entering primary schools for the first time to address issues of violence and deviance from an early age.
– Parents were urged to display responsible parenting, including active participation in parent-teacher associations.
Ministry support to parents where intervention was needed was also promised.
In November of 2019, a 16-year-old student was stabbed to death while at school.
The then Minister of Education, Kay McConney, addressed the nation on October 5, 2024, on the school violence issue, after a number of violent incidents at school. Minister McConney advised and gave assurances of a new ‘comprehensive strategy aimed at curbing violence within schools’, encompassed by a draft National School Security and Safety Protocol (Barbados TODAY, October 8, 2024).
The current Minister of Educational Transformation, Chad Blackman, has been meeting with various education stakeholders. We are not yet aware of the schedule for meetings with parents. Minister Blackman’s statement this week promised that the aforementioned School Safety Protocol would be submitted to Cabinet in the ‘coming weeks’.
Less than 24 hours after Chad Blackman announced this zero-tolerance policy on violence in schools, teachers at the same secondary school where the stabbing death occurred walked off the job in protest following two violent incidents at the school. The media reported that one teacher was assaulted by a student, while two other pupils were involved in a separate altercation.
I do not blame the teachers for this protest action. The issue of school violence seems to be as perennial as the challenges with CXC exams, and the time for ‘a lotta long talk’ relating to both serious issues is long past. Lives are literally at stake.
Clearly, it is imperative that proactive leadership is demonstrated in what is an apparent crisis of school violence and indiscipline in our schools.
Timely, effective implementation of strategies has long been a national challenge, described as ‘Implementation Deficit Disorder’. Indeed, we note that the BUT’s President, Rudy Lovell, has indicated that ‘comparable (school safety) proposals were made over five years ago, but with minimal follow-through’.
Experts have indicated that academic outcomes and behavioural challenges manifesting within schools are reflections of the wider society, often of intergenerational societal inequities which fester in vulnerable communities plagued by the unholy trinity of poverty, drugs and gangs, and are therefore difficult and complex to solve. The Ministry of Educational Transformation alone cannot solve school discipline. Real long-term solutions require interdisciplinary coordination and long-term strategies, guided by experts. However, the reality is that students, including the problematic ones, spend most of their lives at school, which legally is required to be both a safe space for the custody of pupils and a safe space for the employment of teachers and other staff.
We ask the questions which were posed at the beginning of this school year, and for many years prior, mainly by the BUT and the BSTU in the public domain: what are the measurable short-, medium- and long-term change initiatives, with specific plans tailored for the most at-risk schools, addressing school violence and indiscipline, including implementation timelines? Have sufficient immediate requisite finances and resources been allocated?
The evidence is being shared publicly, almost daily, that there is a desperate need for immediate enhanced security measures at all primary and secondary schools. Those ‘zero tolerance’ security measures must sometimes, unfortunately, include accountability within the criminal justice system where injury is sustained, both for the perpetrator and their parent(s), where applicable. Suspension and expulsion are tools which may help to bring some order to the school in the short term by removing the problematic pupil, but if rehabilitation attempts do not follow the student, the behavioural challenges often manifest in crime and violence in the wider society. And we cannot expel all the students with serious behavioural challenges.
In the medium and long term, there is a need to deploy the ‘national village’ of enhanced specialist resources at all schools, community and faith leaders, civil society organisations, and the multi-disciplinary government social welfare network, coordinated to support at-risk families and attempt a change in our culture addressing gender-specific, anger-management and conflict resolution challenges in our schools and the underlying causes. A complex issue such as this requires complex, sustained solutions, which will not happen overnight, with the leadership and ‘muscle’ of adequate resources to ensure successful implementation.
This long-term strategy is to achieve long-term solutions, and is essential to minimise the numbers and negative behaviours of at-risk children at the earliest points in their lives.
We parents need to step up, too. While it is true that some parents genuinely need help and guidance, there are too many who fall short of their parental responsibilities to discipline their children, expecting teachers to fulfil that role—yet some only accept school discipline up to a certain point.
Educational transformation is doomed to failure if it is implemented within the context of pervasive school violence.
No child can learn, and no teacher can teach, if they feel unsafe in a school environment under siege.
Paula-Anne Moore is the spokesperson and coordinator of the Group of Concerned Parents of Barbados and Caribbean Coalition for Exam Redress.
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