Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing ahead with leg­is­la­tion aimed at hold­ing par­ents ac­count­able for the ac­tions of their chil­dren, with Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath con­firm­ing that a draft is now be­ing pre­pared.

Padarath said the pro­posed parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion re­mains a “work in progress” and will have to un­der­go con­sul­ta­tions and scruti­ny across sev­er­al min­istries be­fore reach­ing Par­lia­ment.

“The draft is be­ing pre­pared. There will be con­sul­ta­tions; how­ev­er, the process has to go through the var­i­ous min­istries and the Law Re­view Com­mis­sion (LRC) be­fore it comes to Par­lia­ment,” Padarath told Guardian Me­dia.

“It is a work in progress, and much more will be said on this in due course.”

The con­fir­ma­tion comes as the Gov­ern­ment throws its sup­port be­hind Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s tough stance on school vi­o­lence and stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline, in­clud­ing her po­si­tion that stu­dents who re­peat­ed­ly en­gage in vi­o­lent or dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour should be re­moved from schools.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day al­so con­firmed that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, first sig­nalled months ago, re­mains on the Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da.

“That is still on our books. We are draft­ing it. It will come. It will come,” the Prime Min­is­ter told re­porters out­side the Hall of Jus­tice fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the 2026/2027 Law Term.

She again de­fend­ed her po­si­tion that par­ents must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for chil­dren who refuse to be­have at school.

“Peo­ple are telling me, well, you know, we can’t just send the chil­dren home, but if you can’t be­have and your par­ents will not take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, we’ll send you home,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Padarath, who ad­vo­cat­ed for parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion while the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) was in Op­po­si­tion, has said the Gov­ern­ment is throw­ing its “full weight” be­hind the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is not play­ing; you go to school to learn, not fight,” he said in a me­dia re­lease this week.

He ar­gued that par­ents can­not con­tin­ue “palm­ing off their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty” to the State and teach­ers.

“Par­ents can­not ab­di­cate their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ex­pect the state to dis­ci­pline their chil­dren while they par­ty, fete and go about their mer­ry way,” Padarath said.

He said decades of pro­grammes and poli­cies tar­get­ing at-risk youth would have lim­it­ed suc­cess if par­ents failed to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour.

“As a na­tion we must come to the re­al­i­sa­tion that de­spite all the pro­grammes and poli­cies, if you as a par­ent can­not put a han­dle on your child’s be­hav­iour, then you have failed your child,” he said.

The de­bate comes amid an in­crease in re­port­ed fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ad­min­is­tra­tion) Ju­nior Ben­jamin said this week that at least 27 fights in­volv­ing school­child­ren were re­port­ed in 2025, com­pared with at least 36 so far this year.

Po­lice are analysing the fig­ures to iden­ti­fy pat­terns and lo­ca­tions, but Ben­jamin said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in­tends to place greater em­pha­sis on so­cial in­ter­ven­tion and ad­dress­ing the un­der­ly­ing caus­es of vi­o­lence rather than re­ly­ing pri­mar­i­ly on en­force­ment.

Kissoon: Ex­ist­ing laws al­ready es­tab­lish re­spon­si­bil­i­ties

Con­venor of the Child­hood Jus­tice Col­lec­tive (CJC), Mar­cus Kissoon, how­ev­er, is cau­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment against re­spond­ing to the prob­lem with puni­tive leg­is­la­tion, ar­gu­ing that ex­ist­ing laws al­ready es­tab­lish re­spon­si­bil­i­ties sur­round­ing the ed­u­ca­tion, safe­guard­ing and de­vel­op­ment of chil­dren.

“I would re­mind the state that Trinidad and To­ba­go al­ready has leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Chil­dren’s Ed­u­ca­tion Act and the Chil­dren’s Act, and poli­cies that fol­low, that es­tab­lish­es re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion, safe­guard­ing, and de­vel­op­ment,” Kissoon said.

He ar­gued that those laws are root­ed in the coun­try’s his­tor­i­cal un­der­stand­ing of ed­u­ca­tion as fun­da­men­tal to chil­dren’s em­pow­er­ment, cit­i­zen­ship and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“We there­fore need to re­turn to the his­tor­i­cal mean­ing of ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore re­spond­ing through puni­tive leg­is­la­tion,” Kissoon said.

“The state’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is not sim­ply to pun­ish but to care for, ed­u­cate and sup­port chil­dren.”

Kissoon said if the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to pur­sue new pol­i­cy or leg­is­la­tion, the process should in­clude mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with ed­u­ca­tors, so­cial and hu­man sci­en­tists, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, par­ents, com­mu­ni­ties and chil­dren.

“Our re­sponse should be ev­i­dence-in­formed and ground­ed in child rights and child­hood jus­tice frame­works, not out­rage or re­venge,” he said.