Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is urg­ing par­ents to dis­ci­pline their chil­dren and be more in­volved in their lives.

She had been asked to com­ment on an in­ci­dent at the Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School where a Form One stu­dent was hos­pi­talised af­ter be­ing stabbed dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion around 2 pm.

There were al­so un­con­firmed re­ports that an­oth­er stu­dent was stabbed in an in­ci­dent at a school in Moru­ga.

Re­spond­ing via What­sApp, Gads­by-Dol­ly said such in­ci­dents were un­for­tu­nate­ly not new nor iso­lat­ed.

“This is the re­al­i­ty, even with stu­dents be­ing scanned on en­try for weapons at some schools. In each case, dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion is tak­en and the TTPS is in­volved,” the min­is­ter said.

She added that some par­ents, when called in to dis­cuss these in­ci­dents, ei­ther have no con­trol over their chil­dren or seem to not know about their chil­dren’s neg­a­tive ac­tiv­i­ties while some par­ents fail to show up.

“We par­ents must seek to be as in­volved in our chil­dren’s lives as pos­si­ble we have to be as aware as we can about what they are do­ing. When a red flag is raised, we must take ac­tion to dis­ci­pline our chil­dren.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly said par­ents al­so need to in­stil re­spect for God and man in their chil­dren.

“Too many young stu­dents dis­play ab­solute­ly no re­spect for au­thor­i­ty, and it makes the work of the teach­ers, safe­ty of­fi­cers, and so­cial work­ers much more dif­fi­cult- be­cause what they should be learn­ing at home is to­tal­ly ab­sent. We par­ents must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our chil­dren,” she said.