Violence in school
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- Parent Category: Dec 2011
- Category: Week ending Dec 03rd, 2011
- Published on Monday, 19 December 2011 16:13
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EDITORIAL
A recent incident at the Happy Hill Secondary School has once again brought to the forefront violence in our nation’s schools especially between teachers and students.
THE NEW TODAY is extremely concerned about the report reaching our NEWS Desk about a male teacher in the school pulling a knife at a 15-year old female student following an altercation in the full view of other teachers and students.
There is no information to suggest that the life of the male teacher was in any danger from the student to have warranted the pulling of a knife in such a conflict.
Even if the student was a 15-year old boy who might have been much more powerful than his female counterpart, the teacher has a responsibility to ensure that no act is taken that can send the wrong signals to the rest of the school population, far less the wider community.
It is our understanding that the matter has been brought to the attention of the relevant authorities in the Ministry of Education and that the minister herself, Senator Franka Bernardine is paying very close attention to the incident.
Why is the teacher still at school and on the compound in light of the investigation? This newspaper calls for the teacher now under the microscope to be asked politely to be removed from the environment pending the completion and determination of the investigation into this very unfortunate occurrence at the school.
Without trying to influence the outcome of the probe, this newspaper feels strongly that any teacher who demonstrates such behavior on a school compound or in any public place ought not to be exposed to children in a classroom environment.
Over the years, some of our education officials have attempted to sweep under the carpet a number of unfortunate incidents in our schools by using the transfer method. That is only putting a plaster on the sore.
Grenada is a small society and any teacher who engages in unbecoming behavior in a school environment can easily be identified whether he is placed in a classroom in St. George’s, St. Patrick’s or even Carriacou & Petite Martinique.
The Happy Hill incident also calls for anger management to be implemented as part of the school curriculum not only for students but teachers who intend to make teaching a career and profession.
As the situation currently exists, there is a new generation in our midsts who see things much different and actually do things outside of the norm.
Some of the students in our secondary schools might even be elder than the teacher in their classroom and might adopt certain attitudes to the teacher because of the age factor.
The days are long gone when the community was responsible for growing up a child and took steps to ensure that those virtues of good manners and politeness were instilled in each and every child in the village. It is more or less a dog-eat-dog world in which we are living in today.
The Ministry of Education also need to address the large number of teachers at the Happy Hill Secondary School who were sent there as short-term replacements for teachers on holiday and kept on the payroll without proper approval. The taxpayers of this country must not be over-burdened unnecessarily.
The NEW TODAY would also like to make some passing remarks about the outcome of Monday’s General Elections in St. Lucia in which the incumbent United Workers Party (UWP) of Prime Minister Stephenson King was voted out of office after one-term in government.
The reports out of St. Lucia is that the UWP did not lose the confidence of the electorate because of non-performance on the job but other issues such as corruption and lack of respect for institutions such as the legal system, might have helped to tip the balance in favour of Dr. Kenny Anthony and his Labour Party getting back into government after a break of five years.
The UWP seemingly had “money to burn” and was not short of cash. There were reports of one country with a particular interest in St. Lucia giving as much as one million E.C dollars to some ministers of the King Administration to spend in their constituencies in the past year or so in order to bolster the government’s chances.
Quite a bit of infrastructural work was done all over St. Lucia but the electorate still voted for change.
There were a few elements in the King Administration who brought shame and disgrace to the government due to their behavior which included possible breaking of the law.
One such minister was brought to Grenada by the main opposition New National Party (NNP) and paraded with former Deputy Prime Minister, Gregory Bowen. This minister was caught openly tinkering with the Customs laws of St. Lucia but the matter was covered up by the UWP administration.
There is a lesson for both NNP and the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of Prime Minister, Tillman Thomas from the outcome of the St. Lucia’s elections.
THE NEW TODAY submits that it has nothing to do with any winds of change blowing throughout the Caribbean but with issues of good governance, honesty, integrity in government and putting people first and not engaging in pushing personal agendas and enriching personal pockets at the expense of the public.
The Caribbean electorate is much smarter than most of our politicians think and cannot be easily fooled.
The NNP should have become smarter and wiser from the outcome of the 2003 general elections after its massive 15-0 clean sweep of the polls five years earlier in 1999 when some pundits were predicting that Dr. Mitchell would be in charge of State power for the next 30 years.
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