Helen Drayton
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has signalled zero tolerance for disrespectful and disruptive students and for parents and guardians who refuse to cooperate. She urged students to take their education seriously, attend classes regularly, remain disciplined, respect teachers and school staff, and accept responsibility for their academic progress. She also called on parents to play a more active role in their children’s upbringing and defended teachers’ and students’ right to a safe working and learning environment.
This is sound and timely advice. The Prime Minister also stressed that parenting is the responsibility of families, not the State, and “if students refuse to behave properly and parents ignore their concerns, send them home and let them and their parents battle it out in their house.”
Simply sending misbehaving students home is unlikely to solve the problem and may increase their risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. The Education Act permits suspension and expulsion but also imposes obligations concerning school attendance. While public frustration with school violence is understandable, it is too narrow to treat the discipline and development of children solely as a family matter. That overlooks the State’s legitimate role in children’s education, development and protection.
Responsibility is shared but distinct. Parents have primary responsibility for their children’s upbringing—love, values, education, other essentials of life, and safety and discipline. Schools are responsible for effective teaching, maintaining discipline, and providing a safe learning environment. The State mandates education and provides child protection, health and other support services. As children mature, they must also assume increasing responsibility for their conduct and face appropriate consequences.
We should not excuse violence by attributing every incident to social or psychological problems. Sometimes teenagers make bad decisions. They know when their behaviour is wrong. Blaming parents alone is equally simplistic. School culture, peer pressure, gangs, drugs, domestic circumstances, adolescence and gaps in social and education policy can all contribute.
Nor should every student involved in a fight automatically be treated as equally culpable. A child defending himself or herself against a threatening bully presents a different case from one who deliberately instigates violence.
Nevertheless, violent students pose a risk to teachers and other children and must be dealt with firmly and reasonably.
Sending them home may transfer the problem to parents who are themselves unequipped to manage serious behavioural difficulties. Evidence-based parenting initiatives such as Triple P and The Incredible Years have been used internationally by 25 countries to strengthen parenting skills, family relationships and child behaviour. Adapting such programmes locally could better equip parents and guardians.
We should also ask difficult questions. Why do some previously disruptive students perform better when transferred into more structured educational environments such as SERVOL? Why does serious indiscipline appear less prevalent in some denominational schools? The answers may include strong school leadership, proactive intervention, parental engagement, effective school boards, consistent discipline, clear expectations, quality teaching and a culture of achievement. Good teaching itself can be a powerful behavioural intervention.
The experiences of SERVOL and successful denominational schools suggest caution in attributing indiscipline primarily to parenting. Parenting is a major variable, but school culture, leadership and institutional practices matter enormously. We should examine objectively why serious fighting and indiscipline are disproportionately concentrated in government schools and determine why. What successful policies and practices can be drawn from SERVOL and the denominational schools?
Early intervention at the primary level is critical. Schools should identify behavioural, socio-emotional and psychological difficulties before they become entrenched. Secondary schools often inherit students whose behavioural problems have developed over many years without adequate intervention. Primary education should therefore deliberately cultivate social skills, empathy, self-control, conflict resolution, respect and an understanding of physical boundaries.
Policymakers should consider five priorities: 1) invest in early behavioural intervention and specialist support, including counsellors, social workers and mental-health professionals; 2) strengthen teacher and school-leader training in classroom management, conflict resolution and restorative discipline; 3) build stronger school-family-community partnerships supported by multidisciplinary teams; 4) contemplate effective non-exclusionary interventions before suspension or expulsion where appropriate; 5) enforce clear rules consistently and fairly, backed by early intervention, parental involvement and specialist support.
The objective should not be a choice between parental responsibility and State responsibility. Parents must parent; schools must educate and maintain discipline; students must be held accountable; and the State must provide the framework and interventions necessary to protect children and teachers.
That shared-responsibility approach offers a better prospect of safer schools and better outcomes than simply sending troubled children home to “battle it out” with their parents.
