George Henry, Gleaner WriterSPALDINGS:
THE ASSOCIATION of Principals and Vice-Principals has responded to the wanton kidnapping and murdering of the nation's school children over recent times.
President of the association, Alphansus Davis, said persons involved in the acts of crime have become barbaric and their behaviours merit a barbaric response.
He said the time has now come for action to be taken as the actions that have been used over the years have only been used in the short term and that we have been acting for too long on such measures.
Davis said measures that can eliminate the problem of not only crime against students but those which can address crime in all spheres of the society, need to be implemented and that is not being done.
The association's president, who is also the principal of the Spaldings High School in Clarendon, said the killing and kidnapping of students has been having a negative effect on the entire student population across Jamaica. He noted that female students especially, have been traumatised and fearful of what is happening.
"In my school situation, you have students who are afraid even to come to school because of what is happening to their peers," said Davis.
HELD AT GUNPOINT
This, he said, has forced him and the board of management at Spaldings High to cut out the two-shift system on which the school operated since the early 1970s. Davis said two of his female students were held at gunpoint earlier this year on their way from school, and that, he said, has prompted him to start operating the school on a single-shift system.
Meanwhile, president elect of the Jamaica Teachers' Association and principal of the Seaforth High School, Hopeton Henry, said the violence against children has escalated over the years and it has reached chronic levels. Henry, who is also vice-president of the Association of Principals and Vice-Principals, said as a means of solving the problem, a minimum state of emergency in certain areas where the assault against children was prevalent, needed to be implemented. He said if strong action is not taken in and around schools, the education reform process would not go anywhere.
