Violence in this nation’s schools is continuing to grab the concern of teachers’ unions.
President of the Barbados Union of Teachers, Pedro Shepherd, described the situation as “out of hand”, while speaking on the most recent incident where a female Lester Vaughan student was beaten by a group of other students.
The incident was captured on cell phone, and the video circulated via social media, prompting an outcry from the public and a demand for measures to be taken to put an end to the fighting.
Shepherd said that it was worrying the level of violence that students were now meting out to one another, but of special concern was the fact that girls were now being seen as aggressors in fights, and he questioned why this was happening, as it was “not normal for girls to show the type of aggression that they have been showing in recent times”.
“Something has to be done. Teachers cannot continue to function in schools where they are supposed to function with the level of indiscipline and violence… There is too much of it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is demanding a report from the principal of the school on the matter.
Chief Education Officer, Karen Best, insists that the ministry has a no tolerance policy on violence, and that an investigation was underway with actions to follow.
She said that a subculture was growing in the island where violence was seen as the main option to settle disputes, and that persons were moving away from considering the process of alternative resolutions.