There has been a stag­ger­ing 467 per cent in­crease in stu­dent ex­pul­sions over the past aca­d­e­m­ic year, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the 2025 Bud­get de­bate, Gads­by-Dol­ly re­vealed that 17 stu­dents were ex­pelled in the last aca­d­e­m­ic year, com­pared to just three the pre­vi­ous year. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 65 stu­dents re­ceived warn­ing let­ters threat­en­ing ex­pul­sion.

“This is not a mat­ter of boast­ing or joy, you know. But this is to say to par­ents, we can­not al­low your chil­dren to dis­rupt our schools. Please, take con­trol of your chil­dren!” she said.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of undis­ci­plined stu­dents, the min­is­ter warned that par­ents will face con­se­quences if they up­set the bal­ance Gov­ern­ment is striv­ing to main­tain in schools. This ap­proach aligns with the Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix ap­proved in 2022.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has a Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix for a rea­son and par­ents have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take care of your chil­dren. Don’t leave that to the teach­ers. And I want to tell you that ex­pul­sion is an op­tion for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and we have not been afraid to use it when your child, de­spite our best ef­forts, is dis­rupt­ing our schools. There are chil­dren who have come there to learn. We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to cre­ate and to main­tain a safe space.”

In light of the trag­ic death of St Stephen’s Col­lege stu­dent Jay­den Lalchan, the min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that cy­ber­bul­ly­ing had be­come a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge.

She not­ed that she has spo­ken with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter about this press­ing is­sue.

“Com­ing out of this trag­ic sit­u­a­tion, we have recog­nised that we have a na­tion­al cul­ture of bul­ly­ing. It hap­pens on so­cial me­dia like clock­work and we, I think, have start­ed to un­der­stand the ef­fect this can have not on­ly on school chil­dren but on any­one in this coun­try. Be­cause, sad­ly, Jay­den’s life is gone but we have seen in this week alone, two oth­er sui­cides tak­ing place. We can point to sit­u­a­tions in schools—2010, 2011, 2013, 2014—where school chil­dren have tak­en their lives,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly stressed this was a na­tion­al prob­lem that needs to be con­front­ed and urged the pop­u­la­tion to be kinder to one an­oth­er.

On a more pos­i­tive note, Gads­by-Dol­ly re­port­ed a de­cline in school vi­o­lence. She said in the 2023-2024 aca­d­e­m­ic year there were 1,116 fights and as­saults in term one, which de­creased to 786 in term two and 713 in term three.

How­ev­er, she point­ed out that dur­ing the last aca­d­e­m­ic year, 44 mis­be­hav­ing stu­dents were trans­ferred from sec­ondary schools to Ser­vol—a vo­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion that fo­cus­es on the de­vel­op­ment of peo­ple in mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties.

“That is in an ef­fort to help these stu­dents have an­oth­er chance at trans­for­ma­tion in an en­vi­ron­ment where they will be able to get the sup­port that they need. We are not ac­cept­ing stu­dents who are dis­rupt­ing our schools. We are do­ing what is re­quired but we don’t want to put stu­dents in­to a sit­u­a­tion where they have ab­solute­ly no op­tion and that is where the part­ner­ship with Ser­vol and with MI­LAT is tak­ing place now.”

An agree­ment was signed with Ser­vol last year, at which time on­ly two stu­dents had been trans­ferred, she said.

She praised the Schools of Fo­cus and Re­me­di­al Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme, now in its sec­ond year, which in­volves 106 schools—80 pri­ma­ry and 26 sec­ondary—and tar­gets stu­dents who are leav­ing with­out qual­i­fi­ca­tions. These stu­dents of­ten face dis­ci­pline, per­for­mance, and so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

“If we do not ad­dress these stu­dents in these schools now, in a se­ri­ous way, and put re­sources here, then we will put more re­sources in so­cial de­vel­op­ment, we will put more re­sources in­to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. We don’t want to do it there so it’s bet­ter we deal with it here,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the min­istry has been pi­lot­ing restora­tive prac­tices at 11 schools over the last aca­d­e­m­ic year, teach­ing stu­dents how to han­dle con­flict and re­cov­er from tragedy. The min­istry has al­so hired over 80 school so­cial work­ers and 40 guid­ance coun­sel­lors, bring­ing the to­tal to 227 school so­cial work­ers and 282 guid­ance coun­sel­lors, she said.

In ad­di­tion, Gads­by-Dol­ly said as part of Gov­ern­ment’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tive, a let­ter of award was signed for $3.9 mil­lion for an e-book pi­lot project, which will be im­ple­ment­ed across 106 schools. It will fo­cus on Math­e­mat­ics and Eng­lish, ben­e­fit­ting 25,000 stu­dents. An award was al­so signed for an on­line nu­mer­a­cy pro­gramme aimed at 80,000 stu­dents.

Re­gard­ing planned school up­grades, she said 15 schools have been ear­marked and are await­ing loan fund­ing, while 27 projects are cur­rent­ly in progress.

She al­so crit­i­cised for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, who has fre­quent­ly con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ad­dress emer­gency school re­pairs, stat­ing he knows bet­ter.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said in the 2023-2024 pe­ri­od, 735 emer­gency projects were com­plet­ed, with $126 of the $128 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed be­ing utilised. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 20 schools were con­struct­ed, eight school blocks were built and three projects are on­go­ing.