Less than a week after police were alerted to a planned gun attack at the Chaguanas North Secondary School, 24 students have been “removed” from classes there.
Some of the 24 reportedly hold criminal records and others are currently before the courts on criminal charges.
Education Minister Anthony Garcia made the announcement to the media yesterday following a tour of the school.
He said the students have not been suspended or expelled but simply removed. A team at the ministry spent yesterday afternoon deliberating on what to do next with the students during a rehabilitation process.
The tour, which lasted approximately three hours, included Garcia, Minister in the Education Ministry Dr Lovell Francis, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, Chief Education Officer Harilal Seecharan, Chaguanas Mayor Theron Boodan and permanent secretary in the Ministry of Social Development Jacintha Bailey-Sobers.
President of the T&T Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Davanand Sinanan and the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) Zena Ramatali also were present.
Last Friday, school was dismissed early after school officials got wind of a planned gun attack targetting a teacher and students. On Monday, a 16-year-old student was charged with plotting to kill a teacher at the school.
Yesterday during the tour, students milled about the schoolyard in groups. Some had their backpacks searched by officers stationed a few metres behind the barbwired front entrance.
Some were made to spread hands and legs as metal scanners hovered over their bodies. Students walked past heavily armed police officers, though the presence of the openly armed officers was due to the presence of Dillon.
Dillon, speaking to reporters afterwards, questioned the security measures already at the school.
“When I came to the school this morning I noticed the fence along the side and I asked myself is this really a school? Is this what we want a school to look like?
“When I went to school there was no fence, there were no walls, so the more fundamental question I ask myself is why have we reached to this?”
Dillon said the current scenario again highlighted the need to consider the introduction of a boot camp system or the reintroduction of corporal punishment.
He added: “From a national security point of view, we are here to ensure the safety of the students who come to school to learn and the teachers who come to school to teach.”
To Garcia, who said the school needed urgent attention, the fundamental issue was indiscipline among students. He said despite some opinions that Friday’s situation had been exaggerated, interviews with teachers and staff confirmed the threat was real.
“It was quite clear that this school suffers from tremendous indiscipline problems. It is clear that students are traumatised and teachers, apart from being traumatised, are fearful.
“It is true that there are students at this school with criminal records and there are a number of students in this school who are before the courts on a number of criminal charges,” Garcia added.
He said, however, that the ministry felt an intervention was needed but he said as the minister, he was the only person who had the authority to take certain action against errant students.
He said the principal had identified 24 students “whose behaviour was the cause of a lot of the problems we see at the school.
“Many of those students have been engaged in taxing students, they have been engaged in bullying. I have taken the decision, in consultation with my colleagues, that with immediate effect those students will be removed from the school,” he said.
Garcia also committed to fixing certain infrastructural issues, such as breaches in fences and walls on the compound. He said he would also meet with the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) today to speak to it about making permanent appointments for positions at the school.
“On every level of the school system most of the persons hold acting appointments. Tomorrow we will impress on TSC that people be given permanent appointments. People with acting appointments do not feel empowered to take certain decisions,” he said.
Garcia said the ministry had not made any decision yet on how to treat with the students other than their removal from the school.
“We are going to have certain interventions and we are going to do whatever possible so we can have them rehabilitated in the school system, perhaps in the not so distant future,” he added.
Garcia could not outline the planned interventions but said that needed to be discussed further.
“We will leave no stone unturned to ensure our schools are safe. I have taken a definite decision that we will not tolerate indiscipline and violence in our schools,” he said.
Education Act
Section 5 of the Act states that the minister may “do all such other things as may be found expedient from time to time for the carrying out of his responsibilities for education and training.”
Section 44 states:
(1) The principal of any public school may suspend from attendance any pupil who for gross misconduct may be considered injurious or dangerous to other pupils or whose attendance at school is likely for any serious cause to have detrimental effect upon the other pupils, so, however, that no such suspension shall be for a period exceeding one week.
(2) Where any pupil is suspended from attendance under Subsection (1), the principal of the school shall immediately notify the parent of the pupil and the minister of the suspension and the reasons therefore and the minister may, after receipt of the notification —
(a) order the extension of the term of suspension in order to enable proper inquiries to be made;
(b) after due investigation, order the reinstatement of the pupil on a date to be fixed by him;
(c) order the removal of the pupil to another school, including a special school;
(d) order the expulsion of the pupil.
(3) Any order made by the minister under Subsection (2) shall be final.