sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry is dis­put­ing al­le­ga­tions of a drug block at the Siparia West Sec­ondary School, which has been plagued with in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence and delin­quen­cy for the past decade.

Hav­ing come un­der the radar of the min­istry, the school is deemed high risk and is one of 15 schools where po­lice pa­trols have been man­dat­ed since Feb­ru­ary.

But com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts, who staged a protest out­side the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry of­fice in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day to high­light is­sues at the school, said vi­o­lence con­tin­ues in the class­rooms.

He claimed a stu­dent was stabbed with a knife this week and was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment at the Siparia Dis­trict Health fa­cil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, this was cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied by of­fi­cials at the school, who said there was no stab­bing in re­cent times.

Roberts al­so claimed Block E is an area where mar­i­jua­na is sold.

“There are ar­eas in the school where chil­dren can­not pass where mar­i­jua­na is be­ing sold. (Name called) was a vic­tim and he was told he can­not pass there un­less he buys mar­i­jua­na. He, be­ing strong-willed, de­cid­ed he will pass and he was at­tacked. Now, I am teach­ing him to de­fend him­self,” Roberts said.

He al­so claimed that stu­dents de­stroy prop­er­ty, fling­ing chairs out the win­dows.

“Teach­ers are afraid. MTS guards are be­ing at­tacked and stoned. We are say­ing that leg­is­la­tion must be put in place to deal with school vi­o­lence. We need some kind of sanc­tions against the per­pe­tra­tors of this vi­o­lence in schools. We have to save our chil­dren,” Roberts said.

He not­ed that the stu­dent who was stabbed this week has not yet re­turned to school.

Al­though se­cu­ri­ty checks are made, Roberts al­so said the stu­dents still man­age to en­ter the com­pound with weapons. He said po­lice of­fi­cers make pa­trols dur­ing lunchtime and af­ter school but most times the vi­o­lence takes place in­side the class­rooms, where the chil­dren are un­su­per­vised.

One stu­dent, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty yes­ter­day, con­firmed that vi­o­lence oc­currs al­most dai­ly.

But when told of the al­le­ga­tions yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly made en­quiries, then replied: “The prin­ci­pal has de­nied these claims. Though there are stu­dents who have been dis­cov­ered with mar­i­jua­na, there is no drug block.”

She added: “Two po­lice of­fi­cers reg­u­lar­ly pa­trol the school and as­sist where re­quired. There was no stab­bing of any stu­dent at the school this week.”

This is not the first time that the school has been high­light­ed in a neg­a­tive light. In Feb­ru­ary, af­ter a school fight, six stu­dents were sus­pend­ed. Sev­er­al on­line videos sur­faced show­ing stu­dents bru­tal­is­ing and ex­tort­ing each oth­er. In 2017, for­mer prin­ci­pal Son­ny­lal Sookoo was sus­pend­ed fol­low­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with a stu­dent. He was lat­er re­in­stat­ed.

And in 2019, then Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia sought to in­ter­vene af­ter iden­ti­fy­ing the is­sues at the school. A re­port blamed a break­down of school sys­tems, a lack of lead­er­ship, poor stu­dent at­ten­dance and a 25 per cent dai­ly teacher ab­sen­teeism rate.

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