THE ASSURANCE from the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) that it will closely monitor the new challenge of increasing violence by students at schools as well as on the streets is most welcome.
The hope is that this assurance is not simply a public relations exercise but will find fulfilment through a planned programme.
As the force’s public relations officer Inspector David Welch noted in this past Sunday Sun the force was concerned with the almost weekly occurrences of violence involving schoolchildren and the monitoring would involve “close working with the Ministry of Education”.
Given the extent of the rowdyism and raw violence among students during school hours, at times during classes, spreading across school premises, and on buses and other vehicles, as well on the streets, any serious monitoring effort must also directly involve consultations with principals and teachers as well as parent-teacher associations (PTAs).
Indeed, PTAs are critical to attaining any measure of success in curbing the growing problems of violence involving schoolchildren. Too often parents and guardians seem more inclined to cast blame on principals and teachers rather than engage in some candid self-examination with a focus on the home environment that is very much a contributing factor.
This observation is by no means intended to exonerate principals and teachers from any blame. All are involved in the challenge for restoring a healthy, disciplined environment conducive to learning and respectful social behaviour.
The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) certainly has a responsibility to share its own concerns and remedial ideas with the public and the sooner the better, since Barbados as a nation stands to be the big loser should its school-going youth population slide deeper into this violence syndrome.
In an earlier editorial (January 28) about spreading violence at schools, we pointed to contributing factors such as poor parenting, poverty levels, domestic disputes in homes, as well as lack of proper supervision at schools. The circulation of illicit drugs and possession of knives and other dangerous weapons as well as the dread phenomenon of bullyism were also alluded to.
Now that the problems are spilling into the streets, greater seems the urgency for studied practical responses to arrest this dangerous trend. The resulting serious social consequences for students and the nation are already well known in some other countries of the Caribbean, among them Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Perhaps the RBPF, as well as the BUT and the Ministry of Education, should endeavour to benefit from counterparts within CARICOM in vigorous pursuits of their own beyond assurances of a coming “monitoring” initiative.