The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is com­mend­ing the teacher who pro­tect­ed a fe­male stu­dent at the Moru­ga Sec­ondary School who was be­ing beat­en by a group of girls in a class­room.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia plat­forms, the teacher was seen at­tempt­ing to break up the fight and then shield­ing one of the girls be­hind him, in­cur­ring blows in the process.

How­ev­er, TTUTA told Guardian Me­dia that while it is pleased the teacher in­ter­vened, it wants its male teach­ers to be care­ful when get­ting in­volved in fights in­volv­ing fe­male stu­dents.

“If there are fe­male stu­dents in­volved then our male coun­ter­parts must be cau­tious when in­ter­ven­ing in these fights as ac­cu­sa­tions of im­prop­er touch­ing can be made against the teacher. Ad­di­tion­al­ly teach­ers can be ac­cused of us­ing ex­ces­sive force when in­ter­ven­ing,” said TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin.

He added, “Al­though TTUTA com­mends the teacher in this in­stance we stand by the ad­vice that our mem­bers should ex­er­cise a lev­el of cau­tion and should as­sess the en­tire sit­u­a­tion be­fore in­ter­ven­ing in any fights.”

Lum Kin said the teacher is cur­rent­ly in good health and re­ports of him be­ing dis­ci­plined for his in­volve­ment are false.

But Lum Kin said TTUTA has not­ed a re­cent uptick in school vi­o­lence.

“Over the last six months we have wit­nessed a high lev­el of stu­dent vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline. We call on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to se­ri­ous­ly as­sist the school ad­min­is­tra­tors in curb­ing this high lev­el of vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline. “

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is yet to com­ment on the mat­ter.