Authorities will have to look more closely at searching schoolchildren in light of the recent bloody attacks, one of which left a student with his finger severed.
The advice is from child rights advocate Faith Marshall-Harris who described as horrendous, some of the assaults which she said violated the rights of the majority of children seeking an education.
She, like Minister of Education Ronald Jones, resisted the chorus of calls by the teachers and others for metal detectors in schools, and has cited the Section 64 (a) of the Education Act which provided for the searching of children in cases where there was a suspicion of an offensive weapon. In response to these incidents, Jones also ruled out the possibility of metal detectors being installed at schools as a means to handle violence.
“If a teacher has reasonable grounds that a child is in possession of an offensive weapon that child may be searched. That is something we may have to closely look at doing, enforcing the powers of search. Without that it could jeopardise the well-being and safety of the majority,” the chair of the National Committee on the Rights of the Child told the SUNDAY SUN. (AC)
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