ROBERT ALLEN, vice-principal of Kingston Technical High School, would perhaps not knowingly seek to mislead us, or anyone else for that matter. For, in addition to his very responsible job at the school, he also communes with a higher spiritual authority in his part-time role as an evangelical preacher.

In that context, Mr. Allen would forgive anyone who was astounded by his denial last week of knowledge of an alleged assault, if not attempted rape, of a female teacher at the school, as well as his seeming effort, in later television interviews, to play down the incident as an aberration in a school subject only to pockets of indiscipline.

Listening to Mr. Allen, no one would assume that there is a major problem at the school. But any perception that things are reasonably well at Kingston Technical is mistaken, as Mr. Allen should well know. Just ask any teacher at the school who is brave or willing enough to see through the fog and to speak the truth.

Our concern here is not so much to prove Mr. Allen or the wider administration of Kingston Technical High School wrong, or to catch them out in falsehoods. Rather, it is to underline the inherent danger of denial. The problem, then, only grows worse.

Let's take what happened at the school last Thursday. The female teacher went to a classroom and found that only a few students had turned up for her session. It was raining. The male students apparently began asking suggestive questions about what would happen if the lights went out, when one boy allegedly held the teacher's hand behind her back while he, and others, braced their bodies against hers. She was able to wrest free and flee the classroom.

Despite the reporting of the incident, agitation by other teachers, as well as a hurried meeting by the academic staff, Mr. Allen told this newspaper that he knew nothing of what had transpired. He was perhaps very busy and had not heard the commotion.

On the very day of the reported assault on the female teacher, a male master was allegedly kicked and hit with a bottle by a boy who was caught cheating, the teacher felt, in a mock exam. That male teacher went to the police, apparently believing that the matter would not be adequately handled if left entirely to the school's administration. That is how bad things have become.

But these are not all the incidents at Kingston Technical. There have, over the past several months, been other assaults on teachers and wounding of students by other students. So-called community leaders are regular figures on the campus, harassing, intimidating, negotiating, arbitrating. These incidents have been mostly swept under the carpet.

Obviously, Kingston Technical High School is not the only Jamaican school with these issues. Indeed, the problem of indiscipline and violence is almost endemic in these institutions as it is in the wider society. The solution lies not in a conspiracy of silence and a seemingly misguided attempt to protect reputations, as appears to be the case at this school.

What is likely to be more effective is for principals and teachers to speak out and to take and demand firm action against such behaviour. Indeed, we commend to the Kingston Technical High School's board, principal and teachers, the recent examples of Ms. Cynthia Cooke at Camperdown High and Ms. June Thompson at Rusea's who, as was highlighted in these columns last Thursday, displayed guts.