Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia says there was no ev­i­dence to prove that a teacher of Siparia West Sec­ondary School im­preg­nat­ed a teenaged stu­dent.

Gar­cia was speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing a vis­it at the school at La Brea Trace, Siparia on Tues­day.

In an in­ter­view, Gar­cia ad­mit­ted that ex­ist­ing school dis­ci­pline pro­to­cols had lapsed, adding that he was ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence had not been re­port­ed to the Min­istry by school of­fi­cials.

“We must know ex­act­ly what is hap­pen­ing in the school and that is why we had to come here to­day to in­ter­ro­gate the prin­ci­pal and teach­ers,” Gar­cia said.

Guardian Me­dia broke the sto­ry ex­clu­sive­ly about the lev­el of dis­ci­pline and vi­o­lence at the school on Mon­day. Gar­cia al­so re­vealed that mid­dle man­age­ment should be more in­volved in dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures. He ex­plained that the Min­istry was in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty in the school, not­ing that these were sim­ply al­le­ga­tions.

Told that par­ents ad­mit­ted to be­ing called in by the prin­ci­pal be­cause their chil­dren were hav­ing sex in school, Gar­cia said, “If there is sex­u­al mis­con­duct in school, this has not been brought to my at­ten­tion.”

He added, “The prin­ci­pal can sus­pend a stu­dent of up to sev­en days but if he feels this is not enough based on the sever­i­ty of the al­le­ga­tion, on­ly the Min­istry can ex­tend the du­ra­tion of the sus­pen­sion.” Gar­cia said no re­ports were ever sub­mit­ted to him about these mat­ters.

“We have been say­ing that we have been able to curb to a large ex­tent the in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline in the schools. We have over ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 schools of which we have over­sight. When iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents hap­pen it brings the en­tire school sys­tem in­to dis­re­pute,” Gar­cia said.

“We have to be care­ful not to over-sen­sa­tion­alise news. One thing re­port­ed is an al­le­ga­tion that a fe­male stu­dent was preg­nant for a teacher. An of­fi­cer from the po­lice com­mu­ni­ty de­part­ment did in­ves­ti­ga­tions and she has re­port­ed that is not some­thing that has to do with any­body in this school. She named two peo­ple who have no re­la­tion­ship in this school,” Gar­cia said.

Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran said the is­sue of su­per­vi­sion has to be re­vis­it­ed with­in the con­text of the school dis­ci­pline plan.

“This plan was in­sti­tut­ed some time ago and the mea­sures have lapsed,” Seecha­ran said.

He said schools were head­ed by the prin­ci­pal, vice prin­ci­pal, heads of de­part­ments, deans and safe­ty of­fi­cers who were in charge of stu­dents.

“This struc­ture didn’t work as it should be­cause stu­dents are out of class when they shouldn’t be. Mid­dle man­age­ment must meet with up­per man­age­ment and is­sues dealt with. The prin­ci­pal has a crit­i­cal role to play,” Seecha­ran said.

Asked if dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en for this lapse, Seecha­ran said, “If you’re fa­mil­iar with the dis­ci­pli­nary process a whole set of ac­tion has to be tak­en be­fore we could even reach there. We will sit and dis­cuss the is­sues to de­vel­op strate­gies. It has to be about chang­ing school cul­ture and get­ting stu­dents to con­form. We can­not put the po­lice in every school,” Seecha­ran said.

Pres­i­dent of the TT Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai al­so de­nied al­le­ga­tions that teach­ers were leav­ing school dur­ing class time af­ter sign­ing the reg­is­ter.

He said po­lice had de­bunked the ru­mour that a teacher had im­preg­nat­ed a stu­dent. He al­so de­nied that teach­ers were afraid of go­ing to class, adding this stemmed from an in­ci­dent where a teacher was threat­ened.