00:00So you agree with the Prime Minister that those bad students should be sent home?
00:04The arguments on both sides are good, but I'm saying that we have to also protect the students
00:09and we have to be balancing our approach to it.
00:11I can't say that in every instance we have to send home students.
00:14I think it is based on the specific situation.
00:17There are guidelines which determines how students are suspended and sent home
00:23and those guidelines have to be followed by the principals.
00:25Mr. Kerr said the issue of violence in schools must be addressed.
00:31Because it is very troubling, as I said, to those parents whose children are well-behaved and so on
00:35who are going to school.
00:36I know the debate about sending them home is raging in the country
00:39and I think that on both sides the arguments are sound.
00:44Asked to comment on the police in schools initiative, he said it remains a work in progress.
00:50Police officers are stationed at two Tobago schools.
00:58Well, at this time we don't see the need to add additional schools in Tobago.
01:02I think that it is a stopgap measure in that it was needed at the time
01:06because of the tremendous violence that was going on at all nation schools
01:10and really it is unfair to parents to feel uncomfortable when they send the students to school
01:14who are being bullied and so on.
01:15But of course it's not the solution to the issue.
01:18There's a deeper solution where we have to look at what the root cause of the problem is.
01:21Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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