THE EDITOR: Social media and the news media have been discussing the most recent school violence at the Moruga Secondary School.
I noticed that the MP for the area, Michelle Benjamin, is being reported as calling for the government to issue immediate and decisive action. I’m not sure if she is speaking about the specific issue or the wider issue of violence in schools.
However, as the MP is an election candidate I am assuming she meant this and possibly other incidents in Moruga.
I was forced to think about the government’s role in this and both the actions it could take to discipline students in the hope of discouraging further incidents and what can be done to prevent these things happening beforehand.
The Ministry of Education has a clear disciplinary process that covers most, if not all, violations and all disciplinary actions all the way to expulsion. That leaves two questions in my mind: What happens to the expelled students? And what is in place to deal with these students before they get to the stage of disciplinary action?
To answer the first question, I did some searching online and saw that expelled students are to be enrolled in the government’s Milat programme, which I agree is a good thing to bring them back to a disciplined environment while also focusing on both service and training.
The second question is a little harder to answer. It’s clear that while the ministry does have support services for medical, academic and behavioural issues that would contribute to students acting out in school, there is still more that can be done.
Remedial classes, laptops, etc are being provided for the students and there are student support staff for them, but it is in this last area that I think more support can be given.
There is a debate about the pros and cons of corporal punishment and the effect of its removal from schools. I think “licks” in school had a place, especially for male students, but I think the bigger issue here is actually the other side of that – having someone who can identify a larger social or behavioural issue and help the student and their parents to identify it, understand it, and provide the tools to address it.
The problem is that this requires people who are qualified and experienced to do that. That requires money to bring them into the system and to keep them in the system. I know that money is a problem that keeps the finance minister very busy, but I think this would be money very well spent with a national profit as the benefit.
The next issue in this entire situation is who else has a responsibility here, and on that point I wonder what the MP has done to improve the situation herself? Outside of the typical political response, I didn’t see anything that shows what she has done as a representative for that area.
The Prime Minister, the minister of education, and other ministers have said constantly that this is a whole-of-society issue that requires a whole-of-society response. So while there is room for improvement from the government, there needs to be s
