Two weeks after a troubling incident at the St Joseph High School where two boys were attacked by older students in a toilet, the Ministry of Education is still to offer some assurance to the public that it has handled this matter to the satisfaction of the aggrieved and that the incident and the manner in which it was reported to have been treated are not widely prevalent across the education system.
The ministry and some of its senior officials recently basked in the glow of the 180th anniversary of the founding of Queen’s College. This was the same school where some months ago a teacher flogged students with their belts. That matter has been well covered up from the view of the public and there are many complicit parties. Let the music play on.
One hopes fervently that the St Joseph incident will not be swept under the tattered rug of indiscipline in schools. The October 24th editorial in the newspaper has already said that the ministry neglected to do what was necessary which was to publicly and definitively condemn what occurred.
“In fact, the Ministry of Education should have been first out of the gates with a carefully crafted statement, rather than waiting to take questions from the media. Lest we forget, both the ministry and the minister have espoused zero tolerance on bullying”, the editorial said. The situation has not changed.
There are two things that stand out from the St Joseph incident that require ventilating. The first is the reaction of those who should be protecting the students they have responsibility for. Based on the account of the parent of one of the targeted children, the school showed no sensitivity at all to the seriousness of what had happened. At worst, the act in the toilet could have been referable for examination under the Sexual Offences Act. There could also have been good grounds to forward the matter to the Childcare Protection Agency for a holistic examination.
The parent said that she received a call from a teacher who related that an incident had occurred at the school. According to the parent, the teacher said the children were being “disgusting” and referred to the incident as a “little touching thing”. First, it should have been the Head of the school who should have made contact with the parent and who should have explained what protocols had been activated. Second, the reference to a “little touching thing” is to make light of what could have been a very serious matter.
The Ministry of Education has clearly failed to inculcate in this school – and likely many others – that the incident as was reported had to be addressed with the utmost seriousness, not played down. Given the proclivity to endless useless seminars, might we be bold enough to suggest that the Ministry needs to urgently convene one with Heads of schools, Regional Education Officers and other worthies in the education system on the protocols that must be applied in cases where children may have been subjected to sexual assault in the precincts of a school.
When the parent attended the school the day after the incident, crudity and callousness continued to be displayed. The parent said that at a meeting which she attended with her attorney, her son and siblings, a teacher suggested that the boys were merely “joking.” This quite properly prompted an angry response from the mother, who insisted that such behaviour should never be a joke. She further stated that the word joke could not be used in a matter of this nature. She added that some teachers displayed no remorse and seemed more concerned about maintaining relationships with donors, some of whom were parents of the older boys involved, than addressing her son’s violation.
Shockingly, the older boys who were involved in the incident also attended the meeting and, according to the mother, they were laughing as the discussion was ongoing. The presumed offenders should not have been at this meeting and certainly shouldn’t have felt that they could snigger and question the veracity of the complainant’s account. This was not meant to be some tawdry confrontation at a police station. The parent also related that a female welfare officer conducted interviews with all the students involved but added that laughter persisted among the older boys during this process. The school officials evidently had no grip on the conditions in which these interviews were to be done. It was all together a very disastrous handling of the matter.
The other thing that stands out from the incident is the ease with which bullying occurs in schools and the fact that students have little protection and have to navigate it the best way that they could all on their own. Traditionally, school heads, form masters/mistresses and teachers have shown broad disinterest in this problem. They are at schools to teach or administrate and they are hardly moved by the likelihood that their wards are being severely bullied by others which impairs their learning and their general school experience. This impunity of the bullies must come to an end.
All schools should be required to publish an anti-bullying code and this should be prominently displayed and communicated to students. More importantly, heads and teachers and certainly welfare officers should be sensitised as to what to look for and to be approachable by those who are in constant distress. The schools should also encourage parents to come forward with information on any signs that their children are being bullied.
A recent case in the Trinidadian school system ended in a tragic death with the parents, teachers and other stakeholders ruminating over the failures that occurred. Given the number of years that a child may spend at school, the education system must do a better job of defending their wards from bullying. The ball is now in the court of the Ministry of Education.
