With just over three weeks to go be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic school year be­gins, the Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that po­lice of­fi­cers will be as­signed to schools across the coun­try.

The plan evolved in a meet­ing yes­ter­day be­tween Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro at Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­ers on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of -Spain.

Last month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that a list of high-risk schools would be sent to the po­lice to ini­ti­ate a plan for po­lice pro­tec­tion for stu­dents at these in­sti­tu­tions from the start of the new school term in Sep­tem­ber. This an­nounce­ment set the stage for fur­ther de­vel­op­ing the plan.

Build­ing on the ear­li­er an­nounce­ment, Gov­ern­ment now plans to in­tro­duce po­lice to schools across the coun­try.

The min­sters and CoP said this would help main­tain dis­ci­pline and school safe­ty, as well as re­duce school vi­o­lence, which was a top pri­or­i­ty to en­sure un­in­ter­rupt­ed learn­ing.

How­ev­er, in a press re­lease is­sued af­ter the meet­ing, Dowlath said the re­duc­tion of school vi­o­lence would re­quire more and he be­lieved in a holis­tic ap­proach to ad­dress­ing in­dis­ci­pline, one that em­pow­ered prin­ci­pals, par­ents and com­mu­ni­ties to guide and sup­port stu­dents pos­i­tive­ly.

“We are com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing our stu­dents, sup­port­ing our ed­u­ca­tors and fos­ter­ing se­cure en­vi­ron­ments where every child can thrive,” the re­lease said.

For the 2023-2024 aca­d­e­m­ic year in schools through­out T&T, there were 1,116 fights and as­saults in Term 1, 786 in Term 2, and 713 in Term 3.