Two stu­dents from the Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary School were ar­rest­ed by the po­lice for drug pos­ses­sion on their school com­pound on Wednes­day, but con­flict­ing re­ports have emerged re­gard­ing where the drugs were con­cealed.

Con­cerned Par­ents Move­ment chair­man Clarence Men­doza yes­ter­day claimed the drugs were hid­den in the stu­dents’ rec­tums. He voiced con­cern about the wors­en­ing de­viant be­hav­iour in the school and called for ac­count­abil­i­ty among par­ents.

“I was told the chil­dren were trans­port­ing the drugs in their but­tocks. This hap­pens in the jail sys­tem and on the streets. We are ask­ing now that snif­fer dogs be used on the chil­dren when they come through the school gates,” Men­doza said.

He said some schools in the Vic­to­ria and Ca­roni Dis­tricts have had an es­ca­la­tion of ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy.

“Form One stu­dents are be­ing robbed and the rob­bers are us­ing the mon­ey to buy drugs in school. Stu­dents are hav­ing sex and teach­ers are afraid to go in­to some school blocks,” he re­vealed.

Men­doza em­pha­sised the need for ad­di­tion­al safe­ty of­fi­cers, so­cial work­ers and guid­ance coun­sel­lors in all schools.

“We want to have dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion about what is hap­pen­ing in our na­tion’s schools. We re­alise there is some­thing that is trig­ger­ing these chil­dren and it must be dealt with. These stu­dents don’t care. They smoke in front of you, they gam­ble in front of you. Teach­ers do not want to go in the back of a block with these kinds of stu­dents,” Men­doza said.

He al­so stressed that stu­dents should un­der­go drug test­ing if they are caught trans­port­ing drugs.

“We con­tin­ue to ask that a new arm of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty be put in place, tru­an­cy of­fi­cers, who can deal with these chil­dren out­side the gates,” Men­doza said.

He not­ed that the school ad­min­is­tra­tion in Ste Madeleine has been work­ing to stop de­viance in the school.

“Dur­ing the morn­ing as­sem­bly, drug-re­lat­ed warn­ings and cau­tions are giv­en, yet the Ste Madeleine stu­dents have been caught with drugs,” he said.

He called on par­ents to step up and do more to curb this cri­sis.

He said the Con­cerned Par­ents’ Move­ment will work with Ste Madeleine Form One stu­dents to beau­ti­fy their class­rooms so they can be more com­fort­able in their en­vi­ron­ment.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent Adesh Dwari­ka con­firmed that the po­lice found drugs on the stu­dents. How­ev­er, he de­nied they were found in their but­tocks but rather their school bags dur­ing a search.

Dwari­ka could not say the quan­ti­ty of the drugs but said po­lice took pos­ses­sion of it.

He al­so called on the min­istry to en­sure there are ad­e­quate teach­ers, safe­ty of­fi­cers, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors and so­cial work­ers at­tached to the school.

Call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pro­vide ad­e­quate su­per­vi­sion, Dwari­ka said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has a role to play be­cause based on in­for­ma­tion reach­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion, there are sev­er­al va­can­cies that have to be filled in that school.

“There is a short­age of teach­ers who are sup­posed to be there cur­rent­ly. It is the opin­ion of the as­so­ci­a­tion that if those va­can­cies are filled, there will be prop­er su­per­vi­sion of the stu­dents, so they will not have time to be on the cor­ri­dors.”

Dwari­ka said TTUTA will lob­by the min­istry so there will be ap­pro­pri­ate fill­ing of all va­can­cies.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly for com­ment yes­ter­day but there was no re­sponse up to press time.