EDUCATION OFFICIALS are currently restructuring the Programme for Alternative Student Support (PASS) programme with a view to relaunching it in the near future, says Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Maxine Henry-Wilson.
The PASS programme was launched two years ago. Under PASS, the Ministry intervenes in expulsion cases and works in partnership with schools, agencies and professionals who are able to provide specialised care to reform indisciplined students. These delinquent students would receive detailed counselling and then return to regular school.
Speaking with The Gleaner on Monday, Mrs. Henry-Wilson declined to say when the programme would be relaunched but stressed that one of PASS's key focus areas will be early intervention.
This is to prevent incidents such as the recent stabbing death of one student allegedly by another student whose behaviour had reportedly concerned teachers at the Oberlin High School and growing numbers of suspensions and expulsions in the nation's schools.
"Usually teachers can pick up where they are going to have problems and what we want to do is to try to equip perhaps the guidance counsellors with the skills to do the early interventions," Mrs. Henry-Wilson said.
She said that educators will have to look at other persons who are licensed to do more complicated interventions in a manner similar to some schools which bring in professional psychologists to work with delinquent students.
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She said education ministry officials are now trying to get principals and school boards to support the idea "so we can arrive at a process that we need to follow."
Other approaches to address the problem include enforcing observation of the education code, strengthening Parent-Teachers Associations (PTAs) and allowing students and other individuals to understand what behaviour is unacceptable, the punishments for it and steps taken before suspension and expulsion.
In May, Mrs. Henry-Wilson said education officials would meet with teachers, principals and other agencies such as Transport Authority to explore the cause behind and solutions to growing suspensions or expulsions.
She said that discussions are now under way and that one of the items being discussed by the Public Order Committee in Parliament is "how public agencies can assist in making sure that children are not violating their school rules." These range from going into gaming rooms to reported acts of lewd behaviour by students in public passenger vehicles.The Gleaner reported in May that Holy Childhood High School, a girls school near Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, expelled 17 students for various disciplinary breaches, including unruly behaviour on public passenger buses.
Other media reports show that at Rusea's High School, in Lucea, Hanover, there have been numerous reports of the low level of indiscipline by the students in the town of Lucea and allegations of female students having open affairs with taxi drivers.
Growing numbers of students and teachers are being stabbed by students, according to reports from several high schools and one attack on a security guard, Damion Redley, saw him being stabbed 13 times allegedly by five students at Calabar High, Red Hills Road, St. Andrew in 2002.
