An­na-Lisa Paul

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly will meet with of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (MNS) and Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) next week to dis­cuss vi­o­lence in schools.

Re­spond­ing briefly to a record­ing of fe­male stu­dents fight­ing in a class­room last evening, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the meet­ing will fo­cus on find­ing so­lu­tions to the deep­er is­sues of which vi­o­lence is the symp­tom.

The 27-sec­ond video which was post­ed to so­cial me­dia showed sev­er­al fe­male stu­dents slap­ping and pulling each oth­er, push­ing and shov­ing one an­oth­er, re­sult­ing in over-turned chairs and desks as oth­er class­mates egged them on.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Schools are a mi­cro­cosm of so­ci­ety. Vi­o­lent so­ci­ety, vi­o­lent schools.”

Last Thurs­day, two sep­a­rate in­ci­dents oc­curred at the Siparia West Sec­ondary School – which in­clud­ed one male stu­dent be­ing at­tacked and stomped on by a group of oth­er stu­dents; and in the sec­ond in­ci­dent, a male stu­dent was at­tacked and he sought to de­fend him­self with what ap­peared to be a knife.

Six stu­dents were lat­er sus­pend­ed for five days.

Mean­while, a se­ries of record­ings post­ed to so­cial me­dia on Tues­day showed sev­er­al women en­gaged in a fight with some fe­male stu­dents on the road.

That in­ci­dent has since been placed in the hands of the po­lice for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.