Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is ask­ing the pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble with their com­ments and ac­tions in re­sponse to the death of 15-year-old St Stephen’s Col­lege stu­dent Jay­den Lalchan.

Fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions that Lalchan took his own life on Oc­to­ber 3 be­cause he was be­ing bul­lied at school, there has been out­rage and sad­ness on so­cial me­dia. How­ev­er, some in­di­vid­u­als have be­gun tar­get­ing and at­tack­ing a stu­dent be­lieved to have been in­volved in the mat­ter, nam­ing him and post­ing pic­tures on so­cial me­dia, in­flam­ing the sit­u­a­tion fur­ther.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the min­is­ter said his death is trag­ic and the min­istry ex­tends its con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly and Jay­den’s school com­mu­ni­ty.

Based on the re­port re­ceived, how­ev­er, she said the first in­di­ca­tion that Jay­den was hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty at school came in the form of a let­ter from Jay­den to a teacher on Sep­tem­ber 17. The let­ter ref­er­enced teas­ing by an­oth­er stu­dent, which was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the dean.

On Sep­tem­ber 26, she said, a stu­dent pulled Jay­den’s mask, and Jay­den re­tal­i­at­ed by punch­ing the stu­dent. A teacher quelled the al­ter­ca­tion. As re­port­ed, she said, Jay­den’s par­ent vis­it­ed the school for the first time on Sep­tem­ber 27 but did not meet with the prin­ci­pal. She said Jay­den con­tin­ued to at­tend school with­out any fur­ther re­port­ed in­ci­dents un­til he trag­i­cal­ly end­ed his life.

The min­is­ter said, “No ev­i­dence has been pre­sent­ed to sug­gest that Jay­den was made to en­dure years of sus­tained bul­ly­ing, as there were no pri­or or sub­se­quent re­ports of bul­ly­ing made to the school, and no re­ports to the min­istry on this is­sue.”

How­ev­er, she said the TTPS has in­di­cat­ed they are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent and the min­istry will col­lab­o­rate in any way re­quired.

Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed, how­ev­er, that this is­sue is very emo­tive and emo­tion­al, and, as a na­tion, “we grieve with Jay­den’s par­ents.”

“How­ev­er, I have seen some adults on so­cial me­dia, with­out full knowl­edge of the cir­cum­stances, nam­ing and blam­ing a young man, shar­ing his pic­ture, and mak­ing in­cen­di­ary com­ments. This is ex­treme­ly un­for­tu­nate and sim­ply wrong; adults are en­gag­ing in the same be­hav­iour, bul­ly­ing, which they are ac­cus­ing the young man of. Let us care­ful­ly con­sid­er the ex­am­ple be­ing set for our young peo­ple, whom we ex­pect so much of,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

“Our youth look to us, and re­gard­less of the sit­u­a­tion and our feel­ings, we all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to show them the best ex­am­ple pos­si­ble.”

The min­is­ter said the min­istry has ex­tend­ed coun­selling ser­vices and sup­port to Jay­den’s par­ents and school­mates, and en­cour­aged all stu­dents and par­ents to take ad­van­tage of the ser­vices pro­vid­ed by so­cial work­ers and guid­ance coun­sel­lors at their schools. She al­so re­mind­ed par­ents that coun­selling is avail­able through the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s Com­mu­ni­ty Me­di­a­tion of­fices and the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment’s Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line at 800-COPE (2673).

An­gli­can board: School staff must pro­vide an­swers

Mean­while, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to Lalchan’s death, St Stephen’s Col­lege staff mem­bers will have to ac­count to the school board for their al­leged in­ac­tion in ad­dress­ing his years of com­plaints at the in­sti­tu­tion.

This was the word from pa­tron of the Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion (BAA), Murchi­son Brown, as he de­scribed the death of Lalchan as sad and un­for­tu­nate.

Brown said there was shock and dis­be­lief af­ter he re­ceived re­ports which had re­vealed Lalchan had “been com­plain­ing since he had been in Form One.”

He said the school prin­ci­pal and teach­ers will have ques­tions to an­swer as the mat­ter is analysed and dis­sect­ed fur­ther in the com­ing days.

Asked why school of­fi­cials had not act­ed on the al­leged com­plaints, Brown said these an­swers would be among those sought as they now had to de­ter­mine “what hap­pened com­ing down the line.”

He added, “The prin­ci­pal and teach­ers, they must know and I am sure these com­plaints should have gone to them and it is very sad to see this is the out­come of it.”

Brown said while the school board was not cur­rent­ly struc­tured as it ought to be, he was au­tho­rised to speak on the mat­ter that had, “now come home and hit us.”

As a par­ent who lost a child less than one year ago, Brown ex­pressed heart­felt sym­pa­thies to Lalchan’s fam­i­ly, say­ing he too has strug­gled to di­gest just what could have dri­ven Lalchan to take the ac­tion he had.

“It is rather un­for­tu­nate that it has reached to this stage, that he de­cid­ed in the end to take his life, which is very un­for­tu­nate for a young, young man,” Brown said.

Con­firm­ing Lalchan was a top per­form­ing stu­dent, Brown said, “We trust this is a mes­sage to all par­ents, teach­ers and their school ad­min­is­tra­tion that a lot of ob­ser­va­tion must be paid to chil­dren at home and stu­dents at school, be­cause for this to hap­pen is sad and we have to make sure this does not hap­pen again.”

He added, “As far as the school is con­cerned, I would hope that the prin­ci­pal and the teach­ers are tak­ing some in­ter­est and in­ves­ti­gat­ing.”

Brown as­sured the BAA will be seek­ing an­swers from the prin­ci­pal and teach­ers about what ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened.

“We will await some kind of re­port from them so we can see that this does not hap­pen again. For him to be com­plain­ing since he was in Form One, that says a lot. It means, and I won­der at all, if any se­ri­ous ac­tion was tak­en on the com­plaints,” Brown stat­ed.

“If he was com­plain­ing from Form One to Four, and com­plain­ing to the rel­e­vant per­sons, then that is not a nice thing at all.”

Asked if school of­fi­cials could face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion if the were found to be cul­pa­ble, Brown said, “We would wait to see what re­ports are com­ing from the prin­ci­pal and the teach­ers who taught him be­fore we can talk about any ac­tion at all.”

Asked if he was aware of oth­er stu­dents be­ing bul­lied at the school, Brown placed that on the shoul­ders of school of­fi­cials, say­ing, “The prin­ci­pal and they will have to an­swer some ques­tions be­cause I am sure they are aware of what is tak­ing place. We have got to hear from them.”

On the is­sue of men­tal health among young peo­ple, he said, “We have to start look­ing at what hap­pens not on­ly in the schools, but we have to see what hap­pens com­ing from the home too. Chil­dren have to be ob­served and any strange be­hav­iour has to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

“You can­not take strange be­hav­iour and feel it is some­thing fun­ny or a joke. This is where par­ents have to be on their P’s and Q’s too be­cause that doesn’t just hap­pen in schools, it is a com­bi­na­tion of the home en­vi­ron­ment and the school, so both teach­ers and par­ents must be ob­ser­vant of their chil­dren.”