Minister of Education and Culture, Burchell Whiteman (left) at a press briefing at the Ministry in Kingston yesterday. With him is Permanent Secretary Marguerite Bowie.
EDUCATION MINISTER Burchell Whiteman has criticised principals of the nation's comprehensive high and high schools for threatening to boycott the opening of school this September if the matter of violence in their institutions is not addressed.
Speaking at a press briefing at his Heroes Circle office yesterday, Minister Whiteman suggested that the approach of the principals to having the matter addressed was inappropriate, especially in light of the problem that was to be dealt with.
"Where one is trying to de-emphasise violent responses and confrontational behaviour, it seems ironic that (the principals) are promoting a kind of: if we don't get so and so, then school is not going to reopen," the Minister said. "It just seems like a wrong way to go." Given the complexity of the problem, persons have an obligation to be as careful and principled as possible in treating with the issues involved, the Minister said.
At a regular term meeting of the Committee of Principals at the Hilton Kingston Hotel on Thursday, representatives from over 30 comprehensive high and high schools decided they would be seeking a meeting with the Education Minister to address the growing problem of violence in schools. They said, however, that if the meeting proved fruitless, they would then boycott the opening of school in September to show their disgust.
Reports of teachers being boxed, kicked and doused with water by students and the confiscation of weapons and drugs from students were brought up at Thursday's meeting. The teachers' major complaint was their inability to discipline the students in the way they wanted to. But, Minister Whiteman disputed this claim.
"It is incorrect to suggest that the power to discipline has been removed from schools," the Minister said. "There might be a difference in the kind of discipline that they think will bring solutions and the kind which we think will bring solutions. But in terms of the processes ... they still can suspend, they still can, through their Boards, expel where there is no alternative."
Mr. Whiteman said he was looking forward to the meeting with the principals at which time he said the Ministry would be putting a number of proposals to them for examination. The Minister, however, declined to state what were some of the measures that would be suggested to deal with the problem.
A number of violent incidents have occurred in the nation's schools over the last months. A couple of weeks ago a 17-year-old student at the Excelsior High School was accused of stabbing a teacher, while earlier this year Hopeton Henry, the principal of Seaforth High School in St. Thomas suspended over 500 boys at one time because of the growing problem of violence and indiscipline on the campus.
