Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will to­day re­ceive a re­port in­to a fight at a sec­ondary school in Port-of-Spain that has now gone vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, a crowd of over 20 stu­dents, re­port­ed­ly from the Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, is seen tus­sling with a cou­ple stu­dents in an all-out brawl.

Three staff mem­bers, among them prin­ci­pal Ann-Mar­garet Robin­son, at­tempt­ed to in­ter­vene but the stu­dents who were the main in­sti­ga­tors did not im­me­di­ate­ly stop.

Robin­son, the daugh­ter of for­mer Pres­i­dent and Prime Min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son, was thrown on the ground while try­ing to re­store or­der and was seen get­ting help from her col­leagues be­fore the video clip abrupt­ly end­ed.

The in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly took place last Fri­day around 9. 30 am.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the stu­dents di­rect­ly in­volved in the fra­cas had been sus­pend­ed and will re­ceive at­ten­tion from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD).

How­ev­er, de­pend­ing on the dis­ci­pli­nary his­to­ry of the stu­dents in­volved, the Min­is­ter said their par­ents will re­ceive ex­pul­sion warn­ing let­ters on their re­turn to school or they may face ex­pul­sion at this time.

Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said the prin­ci­pal’s re­port will al­so de­ter­mine the ex­act na­ture of the dis­ci­pline to be met­ed out to each stu­dent.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will con­tin­ue to of­fer sup­port, coun­selling and guid­ance to all stu­dents who re­quire it, but the safe­ty of our teach­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors and stu­dents are be­ing com­pro­mised by a mi­nor­i­ty of stu­dents, who con­tin­ue, by their ac­tions, to dis­rupt some schools and bring the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in­to dis­re­pute,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She warned that the law al­lows for such stu­dents to be re­moved from the sys­tem “to re­store an at­mos­phere of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to the learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment, and this op­tion has been, and will con­tin­ue to be ex­er­cised.”

“Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem will not be held to ran­som by stu­dents who, de­spite the best ef­forts of SSSD of­fi­cers, con­tin­ue to dis­rupt our schools,” Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed.