No retreat. No surrender.
That is the approach Minister of Education and Human Resources Development Ronald Jones is asking school principals to adopt in the zero tolerance approach he has instructed them to take towards bullying.
The minister broke his silence on the issue yesterday morning at the Hilda Skeene Primary School.
Acknowledging that teachers and principals could not see everything that goes on in schools, he said they still needed to keep their ears to the ground.
“You stand at the frontlines of any breakdown in the discipline of the school. You have to listen and you have to respond. Zero tolerance . . . from primary to secondary school must be the order of the day for those who deprive others of their properties, who demean them, and who bully them in school.”
Jones said he was “extremely” disappointed at the images from a recent case of bullying at a rural secondary school, and urged every adult to speak to children in the schools and the homes.
“When a country does not respond, and respond sharply to infractions of behaviour, those infractions grow and criminals develop as a result of it. Because those who practise bullying in the intensity that they do now are in fact potential criminals,” Jones said.
The minister said the bullying situation was putting a severe strain on schools and the early criminal minds had to be dealt with.
He said suspension might not always work, and that an educational, custodial institution had to come. He also urged principals to call the police when such incidents occurred.
