INCREASE IN BULLYING IN SCHOOLS

CCNTV6

There has been an increase in bullying in schools across Tobago. This from TTUTA Tobago officer Bradon Roberts, during an interview with TV6 on Tuesday. He spoke with our reporter Elizabeth Williams on Tuesday, on the heels of  Monday's faeces attack on the valuables of a 13-year-old second form student of Mason Hall Secondary School. More in this report.

Transcript

00:00Feces were thrown on the student's bag I believe somewhere around 7.15 yesterday

00:05morning. They are unaware as to who the perpetrator is and they are looking at

00:10it but the real underlying issue is there is increased level of bullying not

00:14only at Miss North Secondary School but at a number of our schools in Trinidad

00:19and Tobago. Based on my understanding I believe the students whoever it is would

00:24have gone to the toilet to get some of those whatever it was and to throw it on

00:28the child's bag. To prevent that particular incident I'm not certain how

00:34we'll do that you see we can't predict when the crimes would take place. What we

00:38need to do is coach the thinking of our young persons so we don't have children

00:42thinking about doing that kind of a thing. That's not funny that's not in no

00:46way a game to play. Mr. Roberts said there is an underlying issue affecting

00:52the education system and that is indiscipline in schools. The underlying

00:57issue also is that they are tying the hands of principals and teachers and

01:01then the public is calling on principals for answers. When you have a cherry

01:05picking of items of the policies of our schools and we ridicule those we

01:12are breaking down the same tenets that we looking for to have discipline

01:16instilled in our students. So for example we had the hairstyle policy the

01:21minister jumped on her typewriter and nullified that because there were some

01:25persons talking about the African culture and so on. So now we have our

01:28students going to school with a knotted up fading the sides here we have the

01:33young ladies with the baby edges and so on. So the focus is not really on the

01:38schoolwork we are focusing on the hairstyles. Mr. Roberts sought to bring a

01:43clearer picture on the matter. We know that teachers are not to beat, have

01:49corporal punishment and so on but teachers cannot even be too stern to a

01:53child because that's verbal abuse. So when we have these national policies and we

01:58have the judges rule of 2016 where it highlights all the things that police

02:03officers cannot do to school children. What are we really asking of principals

02:08and teachers when we have this culture at our schools. He said more personnel

02:12are needed to assist the student support services unit. Student support services

02:18division is significantly under resourced in terms of personnel in terms

02:21of time frame for them to be able to address all these schools. So instead of

02:24a guidance officer having five or six children they may have five or six

02:28schools. So the resources to treat with what is needing our schools in Tobago

02:32it's not there and that resources of personnel and resources of the actual

02:37material that we would need to assist our schools. School supervisor 3 Sherry

02:42Anne Rolox Hackett also visited the school in addition to police officers on

02:46the compound on Tuesday. Elizabeth Williams TV6 News

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