KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter sev­er­al schools opened their doors on Mon­day un­der the watch­ful eyes of po­lice of­fi­cers, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is say­ing that while the union sup­ports mea­sures to im­prove safe­ty, the roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties must be clear­ly de­fined. TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said armed of­fi­cers should ide­al­ly be sta­tioned out­side school com­pounds, with those car­ry­ing less lethal weapons like pep­per spray and tasers in­side.

“We are just say­ing that the pres­ence of these of­fi­cers must be done in a man­ner that is clear, and all par­ties in­volved are sure of what the du­ties are, who they re­port to. We have said, and we will con­tin­ue to say, that the pres­ence of armed of­fi­cers on the com­pound we have a dif­fi­cul­ty with be­cause of cer­tain rea­sons.”

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day morn­ing, Lum Kin said the de­ploy­ment of of­fi­cers was not un­prece­dent­ed. He said in the ear­ly 1990s, un­der for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Clive Pan­tin, San Juan North Sec­ondary and Mal­ick Sec­ondary schools had con­cealed armed po­lice work­ing with­in the schools. The TTUTA pres­i­dent em­pha­sised that while law en­force­ment pres­ence can help ad­dress gangs and in­trud­ers, it should not be re­lied up­on as a long-term so­lu­tion. He said the mea­sure should com­ple­ment pro­grammes tar­get­ing the root caus­es of vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline, not­ing that schools are a mi­cro­cosm of so­ci­ety.

Lum Kin said TTUTA was await­ing de­tails from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on which schools cur­rent­ly have law en­force­ment pres­ence and hoped for feed­back dur­ing a stake­hold­er meet­ing lat­er this week. Lum Kin said the as­so­ci­a­tion could have played a greater role in for­mu­lat­ing the pol­i­cy.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath for com­ment but re­ceived no re­sponse.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed armed of­fi­cers in schools. She said enough was enough and added that the move would lead to the end of bul­ly­ing and class­room vi­o­lence.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “No mat­ter what some com­men­ta­tors say, the law re­mains the law, and TTPS of­fi­cers are free to car­ry their firearms in­side or out­side of schools if it is deemed nec­es­sary.”

Mean­while, Lum Kin praised Dowlath on his maid­en over­sight of the open­ing of the new school year, say­ing it went as smooth­ly as it could. He said, though, Ce­dros Sec­ondary did not re­open, while To­co Sec­ondary closed ear­ly on Mon­day and re­mained closed due to an elec­tri­cal is­sue.