Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Po­lice con­tin­ued a lock­down at the Moru­ga Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a bru­tal gang fight last Fri­day which left a stu­dent hos­pi­talised.

Am­a­teur footage of the fight showed eight girls at­tack­ing each oth­er out­side the school com­pound. They were record­ed on a phone cam­era as they kicked, cuffed and dragged each oth­er. One girl was seen stamp­ing the face of an­oth­er girl who lay on the ground with her skirt pulled up to her knees. The gang of stu­dents al­so were seen beat­ing an uniden­ti­fied girl, who wore an or­ange top. The girl re­tal­i­at­ed kick­ing a stu­dent be­fore a man in­ter­vened and at­tempt­ed to quell the fight. A se­nior school source said since the fight, sev­er­al stu­dents were sus­pend­ed. Dai­ly checks for weapons are made by po­lice. Stu­dents cel­lu­lar phones are of­ten seized. The of­fi­cial said the fight was the lat­est of a se­ries of vi­o­lent acts at the school over the past year. The of­fi­cial said the school was con­sid­ered high-risk as stu­dents were mo­lest­ing teach­ers. The source added: "We had a case re­cent­ly where a male stu­dent in­ter­fered with a fe­male teacher. He was sus­pend­ed. The stu­dents have no re­spect for au­thor­i­ty.

"In an­oth­er in­ci­dent a Form Two stu­dent slapped a teacher and then brought her moth­er at the school. The moth­er want­ed to beat the teacher," the source said. Po­lice con­firmed Fri­day's fight, say­ing they stepped up pa­trols. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion al­so ap­point­ed safe­ty of­fi­cers to deal with delin­quent stu­dents. Five Deans of Dis­ci­pline and six se­cu­ri­ty guards al­so were as­signed to the school. How­ev­er, se­nior school of­fi­cials said de­spite these mea­sures, stu­dents were con­tin­u­ing to rebel with the hope of be­ing sus­pend­ed.

"We have to find an­oth­er way to deal with this prob­lem. We have to re­alise that these stu­dents come from op­pressed ar­eas. They come to school ex­pect­ing to get love and care from teach­ers but they are not get­ting this. "All we are see­ing are co­er­cive cor­rec­tive mea­sures be­ing tak­en," the source said. The school has 50 teach­ers on staff and over 500 stu­dents. "We have a high lev­el of stu­dent ab­sen­teeism. On any giv­en day we have on­ly about 300 stu­dents at the school." The of­fi­cial rec­om­mend­ed that in­stead of sus­pend­ing stu­dents, a more proac­tive ap­proach be tak­en.

The of­fi­cial added: "The school rules are too rigid. Stu­dents have to be on time, they tak­ing their shoes, cut­ting their pants, pres­sur­ing the chil­dren for too much non­sense. The com­mu­ni­ties are dis­ad­van­taged and teach­ers chas­ing you and run­ning you. "They don't have a car­ing ap­proach to chil­dren. Deans are cre­at­ing the most in­dis­ci­pline. The re­sources of school are not be­ing chan­nelled to as­sist chil­dren." The of­fi­cial said some­times over a dozen stu­dents were sus­pend­ed for fight­ing and abus­ing teach­ers. How­ev­er, the source said the sit­u­a­tion was now at a point where stu­dents want­ed sus­pen­sion to get out of the school. Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion El­ton Wick­ham could not be reached for com­ment as he did not an­swer his cel­lu­lar or of­fice phones.