An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers
@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has urged teach­ers to send dis­rup­tive stu­dents home and leave par­ents to deal with them, sig­nalling a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to in­dis­ci­pline as schools re­open for the 2026/2027 aca­d­e­m­ic year to­day.

In a strong­ly word­ed so­cial me­dia mes­sage yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on teach­ers and prin­ci­pals to adopt a no-non­sense stance to­ward dis­re­spect­ful and mis­be­hav­ing stu­dents, as well as un­co­op­er­a­tive par­ents and guardians.

“I strong­ly urge you to adopt a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy to dis­re­spect­ful and mis­be­haved stu­dents and par­ents. Don’t stress out your­selves try­ing to help per­sons who don’t want to be helped. If stu­dents refuse to be­have prop­er­ly and par­ents are ig­nor­ing your con­cerns, send them straight home and let them and their par­ents bat­tle it out in their house,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“You are there to teach, men­tor and pro­tect those stu­dents will­ing to learn; you are not there to be abused, in­tim­i­dat­ed and ha­rassed by any stu­dent or par­ent.”

The Prime Min­is­ter ac­com­pa­nied the mes­sage with an equal­ly blunt warn­ing to stu­dents, urg­ing them to take their ed­u­ca­tion se­ri­ous­ly or risk fac­ing a dif­fi­cult fu­ture.

She al­so crit­i­cised those who tell young peo­ple that fail­ing at school does not mean their lives are over.

“These same per­sons, while pub­licly giv­ing you that ad­vice, are pri­vate­ly giv­ing their own chil­dren and grand­chil­dren the same warn­ings about a dif­fi­cult fu­ture with­out an ed­u­ca­tion as I am giv­ing you to­day. None of these glib peo­ple are go­ing to lift a fin­ger to help you when you com­plete school­ing with­out an ed­u­ca­tion and are strug­gling to earn a liv­ing,” she said.

Ad­dress­ing stu­dents di­rect­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: “Life is tough with­out an ed­u­ca­tion. It will grind you down un­til you end up just sur­viv­ing day to day and not ac­tu­al­ly liv­ing a sat­is­fy­ing, whole­some life. There will al­ways be dif­fi­cult days in life, but a good ed­u­ca­tion gives you many op­tions to nav­i­gate dif­fi­cul­ty and over­come chal­lenges to have a won­der­ful life.”

She en­cour­aged stu­dents to at­tend class­es reg­u­lar­ly, re­main dis­ci­plined, re­spect teach­ers and school staff, and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their aca­d­e­m­ic progress.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so called on par­ents to play a more ac­tive role in their chil­dren’s up­bring­ing and ed­u­ca­tion.

“Know what they are learn­ing, mon­i­tor their be­hav­iour and progress, lis­ten to their con­cerns and work close­ly with their teach­ers. Do not dump your parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ties on­to teach­ers; that is your job. You made your chil­dren. It is not the teach­ers’ or any­one else’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to mind them,” she said.

“Do your part now with your chil­dren so that in years to come, when they be­come adults, you won’t have to be at the cour­t­house in your old age try­ing to se­cure bail to get them re­leased from in­car­cer­a­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks con­trast­ed sharply with the more up­beat tone struck by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, who de­scribed the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year as one of “ex­cite­ment, pos­si­bil­i­ties and fresh op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

Dowlath high­light­ed the ded­i­ca­tion of teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, school staff, par­ents and guardians, as well as the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to plac­ing stu­dents at the cen­tre of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. He al­so point­ed to on­go­ing im­prove­ments in school in­fra­struc­ture and ef­forts to cre­ate safer, more sup­port­ive learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments where stu­dents can thrive.

Mean­while, as fam­i­lies pre­pare for the new school year, many par­ents have tak­en to so­cial me­dia to com­plain that they are still wait­ing to re­ceive their School Sup­plies and Book Grants.

Dowlath has de­fend­ed the de­layed dis­tri­b­u­tion, not­ing that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had just six weeks to ver­i­fy 20,744 ap­pli­ca­tions.

Speak­ing dur­ing a tour of schools on Fri­day ahead of to­day’s re­open­ing, he said the num­ber of grants in­creased by 744 this year and that ap­proval for the pro­gramme was re­ceived in June. As of last Thurs­day, more than half of the grants, val­ued at over $10 mil­lion, had been dis­trib­uted.

Dowlath al­so as­sured par­ents that stu­dents would not be pe­nalised for re­turn­ing to school with­out all of their re­quired sup­plies.