Five stu­dents in­volved in the bru­tal as­sault on a Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent in front of the school gates in Cou­va on June 10 have been sus­pend­ed.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­firmed this yes­ter­day, un­der­scor­ing that acts of school vi­o­lence are be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

The re­lease stat­ed, “The min­istry re­it­er­ates that it views all acts of vi­o­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­volv­ing stu­dents, with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness. In close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and rel­e­vant school au­thor­i­ties, im­me­di­ate steps have been tak­en to ad­dress the in­ci­dent.”

The min­istry fur­ther stat­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions were ini­ti­at­ed prompt­ly, and the stu­dents in­volved are cur­rent­ly be­ing en­gaged through the ap­pro­pri­ate dis­ci­pli­nary chan­nels.

“As of to­day, five stu­dents have faced sus­pen­sion, while ex­tend­ed sus­pen­sions have been re­quest­ed in keep­ing with es­tab­lished pro­to­cols.”

The min­istry added that fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing.

In ad­di­tion, the min­istry has ac­ti­vat­ed its stu­dent sup­port mech­a­nisms. The Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion has been de­ployed to pro­vide coun­selling and psy­choso­cial sup­port to the af­fect­ed stu­dents and the wider school com­mu­ni­ty.

“This en­sures that any emo­tion­al or psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact is ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed and that steps are tak­en to pre­vent re­cur­rence.”

Po­lice said on Mon­day that the stu­dents in­volved in the fight, who are from three oth­er schools, could not be lo­cat­ed at the ad­dress­es pro­vid­ed to them. Con­tact­ed last evening, an of­fi­cer said no ar­rests have been made as yet but in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.—Sascha Wil­son