The Peer Me­di­a­tion Pro­gramme launched by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry at the El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary School is one of the most promis­ing ini­tia­tives against school vi­o­lence to be in­tro­duced in re­cent times.

Full sup­port should be giv­en to this ef­fort, led by the min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, which ze­roes in on one of the biggest prob­lems in the pub­lic school sys­tem. It is an in­ter­ven­tion that should be giv­en every chance to suc­ceed, with ad­e­quate re­sources pro­vid­ed and guid­ed by qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als.

Es­ca­la­tions in school vi­o­lence have been oc­cur­ring with dis­turb­ing reg­u­lar­i­ty for decades and al­most every ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter since Clive Pan­tin in the 1980s has grap­pled with it.

It has now be­come a ma­jor is­sue for Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, the cur­rent of­fice hold­er, who has faced a post-COVID surge in school vi­o­lence.

Com­ing up with ef­fec­tive re­spons­es to this wors­en­ing prob­lem is a dif­fi­cult un­der­tak­ing. School vi­o­lence takes var­i­ous forms, in­clud­ing bul­ly­ing which can eas­i­ly de­vel­op in­to a dan­ger­ous, life-threat­en­ing epi­dem­ic if it isn’t quick­ly brought un­der con­trol.

The chal­lenge is that in ad­di­tion to phys­i­cal bul­ly­ing which can leave no­tice­able bod­i­ly marks, it is very dif­fi­cult to de­tect re­la­tion­al bul­ly­ing that can in­flict life-threat­en­ing men­tal and emo­tion­al wounds.

Con­sid­er­able harm is done through cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, which us­es dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy to in­tim­i­date in­tend­ed vic­tims via text or so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

The vi­o­lent in­ci­dents erupt­ing in schools from time to time are dri­ven by neg­a­tive peer pres­sure, the gang cul­ture that has in­fil­trat­ed many school cam­pus­es, as well as the trend of record­ing school fights and post­ing them on­line.

That is why it is so im­por­tant to de­vel­op pro­grammes  like the one launched yes­ter­day, that en­cour­age stu­dents to get in­volved in re­solv­ing con­flicts, thus mak­ing them a part of the so­lu­tion.

Of course, it can­not op­er­ate in iso­la­tion. Peer me­di­a­tion works best as part of a pack­age of in­ter­ven­tions that tack­le the prob­lem proac­tive­ly from dif­fer­ent an­gles.

At present, when­ev­er there are in­ci­dents of school vi­o­lence, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry steps in, de­ploy­ing school so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, and restora­tive prac­ti­tion­ers.

What is dif­fer­ent about stu­dent-led me­di­a­tion is that in­stead of re­spond­ing af­ter an in­ci­dent oc­curs, it fo­cus­es on cre­at­ing a school en­vi­ron­ment in which vi­o­lent in­ci­dents are less like­ly.

Young peo­ple can be ef­fec­tive agents of change. Get­ting them ac­tive­ly in­volved in ini­tia­tives to re­duce vi­o­lence and bul­ly­ing as stu­dent me­di­a­tors in an­ti-bul­ly­ing pro­grammes should be in­tro­duced in all pub­lic schools.

In ad­di­tion, parental and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port for ac­tiv­i­ties that pro­mote con­flict res­o­lu­tion and anger man­age­ment could, over the medi­um- to long-term, re­duce the need for po­lice in­volve­ment in school af­fairs.

Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly and the team at the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vice Di­vi­sion should be com­mend­ed for adopt­ing a more en­light­ened ap­proach to school vi­o­lence in­stead of go­ing the usu­al re­ac­tive and puni­tive route.

Hope­ful­ly, it is one in a se­ries of fresh ap­proach­es to a very com­plex prob­lem. 

Ex­pe­ri­ences over the years have shown that in­con­sis­tent and in­ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tions have brought the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to the point that vi­o­lence doesn’t hap­pen on­ly with­in a hand­ful of prob­lem schools. It is now a na­tion­wide is­sue that is in­fil­trat­ing even pres­ti­gious in­sti­tu­tions.

That’s why, with all that is at stake, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry can­not af­ford to drop the ball on this one.