On Tuesday, an altercation between two male students at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology (SJPI) left one of them with stab wounds to his abdomen and neck.
It was another instance of violence within this island’s educational institutions.
In many situations, scenes of violence are captured on video and circulated via social media. We see them, we watch them and some even share them. But when the unimaginable happens, we all join the chorus of condemnation.
In January 2020, a 14-year-old boy was one of two people charged with the shooting death of Marlon Holder as he was dropping his son off at St Alban’s Primary School.
We would also recall that dark day on November 8, 2019, when a stabbing death at the Frederick Smith Secondary School was reported. Two students, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, were involved in a fight. The 16-year-old, Temario Holder of Checker Hall, St Lucy, died on the spot.
A repeat of days like those is something none of us wants to witness or hear of ever again. But what are we doing to make sure this is a reality?
We are aware that violence is a societal problem. We are also cognisant that if authorities do not get in front of this issue it will fester and grow. Then parents, guardians, teachers and all of society may find ourselves lamenting again.
For the year so far, we have recorded a number of violent crimes that have left many dead. The Commissioner of Police told the public that the heightened criminal activity was linked to gang violence. Yet, we have not seen these so-called gang members or leaders facing the law courts.
While we cannot say, nor are we suggesting, that any of the violent incidents previously mentioned was gang-related, we must act before it is too late.
Shortly after the police chief made his comments, and just ahead of the Michaelmas Term, prominent youth activist Roger Husbands declared that some of the members of violent gangs are in schools.
He then called on law enforcement officials and the Ministry of Education to ensure the bloodshed did not make its way into educational institutions.
“…. You have young gangsters and you have young guys who are actually running gangs who will be going back into the school system and I want to encourage the Minister of Education from now to start to put plans in place for what might possibly happen,” the director of the Drug Education and Counselling Services (DECS) had said in an interview with Barbados TODAY.
Days later, Husbands’ caution was supported by Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) president Rudy Lovell. He called on education authorities to ramp up security at schools ahead of the September 19 start of classes.
He noted that some primary schools were without security guards, which left students and teachers exposed if the violence should reach school compounds.
Just shy of a month after the start of the school year, we support the calls and admonitions of both Husbands and Lovell.
It is high time that both education and law enforcement authorities be more proactive and less reactive. It is high time they get into schools, community groups and churches and speak to students in plain language about the brutal reality and consequences of violence.
We must send a clear message to gang leaders that our islands’ youth will not be used as pawns in crime rings.
