Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment “ef­fec­tive safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures” with­in the na­tion's schools.

His call comes af­ter an in­ci­dent on Thurs­day (May 23, 2024), in which at least five stu­dents were in­jured dur­ing a vi­o­lent clash at the Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary School.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Mooni­lal, there is an ur­gent need for gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly in­tro­duce poli­cies to al­low for greater in­volve­ment by the Po­lice Ser­vice at schools through the Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Pro­gramme.

The Op­po­si­tion MP not­ed in a state­ment that met­al de­tec­tor equip­ment should be placed at schools, be­gin­ning at high-risk in­sti­tu­tions.

“There should be all-round im­proved school safe­ty ex­er­cis­es, with an en­hanced role for the Main­te­nance, Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS),” he said.

He added: “The Gov­ern­ment must rein­tro­duce the schools’ se­cu­ri­ty pro­gramme which the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Ad­min­is­tra­tion im­ple­ment­ed and which the [Dr Kei­th] Row­ley regime ar­bi­trar­i­ly scrapped.”

Dr Mooni­lal al­so rec­om­mends that the De­fence Force and oth­er arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices car­ry out men­tor­ing ex­er­cis­es at schools.