Desmond Henry TREASURE BEACH:
DID MOST of you see those pictures on television of the collection of weapons taken from students at that school in Westmoreland, earlier this week? I hope you did, because it illustrates directly the point I've been making for the last five years about security in our schools.
Seeing the weapons is one thing. Hearing what those in charge had to say is another. I listened to a news interview that same afternoon, with the school's headmaster, the Ministry of Education's division manager, and the JTA president on the question of lawlessness in schools. I almost vomited while driving. The JTA president is going to create "a rapid response team" to react to (not to prevent) such future happenings. Big deal. The headmaster sounded all dumbstruck, and seemed to be wondering when Santa Claus will arrive with the bag of solutions. All others were up to their necks in platitudes, not knowing what to do or where to turn. What the hell is going on?
It was precisely this kind of intimation that led me to the point I made in the past, which was that a deliberate national effort should be made to apprehend and collect all samples of outrageous weapons being transported in school bags into our schools; and that once this has been done, the Ministry mounts a mobile exhibition of these weapons for all to see, right across the entire island. The main aim would be to expose and shock the country into action. In keeping with what I suspected would have been discovered, I had proposed calling the collection "A bazaar of the bizarre." Nothing was done of course, and today we continue to drop our collective jaws at what is turning up in our schools on a daily basis.
Truth is, that in this matter of discipline in schools the Ministry of Education is in need of a huge administrative and psychological overhaul. When fate provided them with an opportunity to take a strong stand at Munro College a few months ago, they took a hide-and-seek escape route behind a bunch of technicalities. Here was a chance for them to send the strongest possible message to all unruly students, but instead they backed off and displayed nothing but timorous weakness.
Well hear this, the Munro factor is going to play big in our educational management system for years to come. The Minister was unpardonably wrong in capitulating in the way he did , and is now beginning to reap the effects of that weakness. By not taking a strong stand and expelling the students, they have now set a pattern for others, similarly inclined, to follow. This talk about ready response is as asinine as trying to deodorise a skunk. It is doomed to failure.
The Minister should know that in almost every rural school, there are huge doubts among teachers about their own authority to deal with indiscipline and how far they will be supported by the Ministry. Students, parents and neighbourhoods also know this and, on the basis of what they have seen, now feel secure in taking the law into their own hands. That's where we are, and as long as the authorities remain spineless, things will only get worse. Westmoreland had machetes and knives, look out for guns and bullets next time around.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Early to bed, Early to rise, Work like hell, And organise.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
