The Editor, Sir:

I am glad to see that the minister of education is fully on board with those of us who believe that very little can be achieved in education without the participation of parents. I do not know the extent to which parents can be held legally responsible for acts committed by their children, but I fully support any effort that attempts to do so.

What we must avoid is the temptation to believe that the problem of violence is going to be solved merely from more policing and tougher measures. The emphasis now should not be on punishment, but rather on attempting to change behaviour.

Examine motives

Both students involved in the incident in St Ann, accused and victim, needed an education and deserved to be in school. We need to examine what precisely motivated one boy from a non-traditional high school to take the life of another from a traditional high school. What created the opportunity for it to happen in the way it did? Is it some sort of subliminal anger in many of our young people that has its roots in the perception that the society in which they live does not regard them as being of any importance? Were these boys supervised beyond the school gate? How difficult was it for their parents to do so?

Lisa Hanna's very simple comment as reported in The Gleaner of October 23 should be taken very seriously: "The system is not working. We now need to develop a system where we can monitor every child to ensure that they can come out as meaningful citizens."

Supervision needed

I have been making the point in several letters to the newspaper that what our children need is to be supervised. The present system makes it difficult for students' lives to be monitored and supervised beyond the school gate. Restructure the system to ensure that students go to school within their own communities, as far as possible. This would enable most schools to keep them supervised in school for longer periods, during the day. Schools should maintain a parent register to monitor a required number of visits to the school. You can be sure that the young men involved already had a record at the schools they attended.

R. HOWARD THOMPSON

Rockton, Waltham,

Mandeville