TWO SCHOOLBOYS in a fight. In times not too far past, the scuffle would have ended with a bloody nose, a torn shirt, scraped knuckles. Today - a few days ago to be exact - in a St. Catherine schoolyard, two schoolboys got in a fight. When it ended, there was no bloodied nose, no scraped knuckles. Instead, one boy lay dead, the result of a knife plunged repeatedly into his abdomen allegedly by his opponent. The dead boy was 15 years old. His accused killer is 14.

The tragic event at the Braeton Primary and Junior High School in St. Catherine unfortunately is not the first tragedy of its kind. All indications are that unless some solution can be found to stem the tide of juvenile violence which we are witnessing, it may not be the last.

The society cannot afford to treat this lightly or hope it will go away. There is something wrong which needs to be addressed with urgency. Commenting on the recent incident, Senator Noel Monteith, Minister of State in the Ministry of Education and Youth, said that efforts have been made to address the perennial problem of violence in schools and points to the ministry's efforts to address the behavioural deficiencies of some students.

Whatever the ministry is doing cannot and will not be enough unless the wider society recognises that this is a crisis which can only be dealt with effectively by the involvement of all players. Home is the obvious starting point. Even as it is acknowledged that the task of child rearing is not easy, in the face of social and economic pressures, parents have to be brought to face the demand of new times. The concern often expressed about the negative influence of popular media with its images of gross sexuality and violence has to be addressed by the authorities and the involvement of parents in the environment of the home.

As for the school, it is now evident that teachers alone cannot socialise our children to become the quality citizens that we would wish them to be. The wider society is not exempt from responsibility either. Children DO live what they learn. The lack of positive role models, for one, must weigh heavily on our children. It is no wonder that they give in to uncontrolled anger and displays of anti-social behaviour which has brought us to the present crisis. Children killing children does not augur well for a nation's future. We must act to save them - and ourselves.

Elsewhere on this page, a student of the genre suggests that the education system "should act as a countervailing force to the family" and makes the cogent point that the authoritarian approach is not relevant in these times; citing our own contribution with other stakeholders to the PALS (Peace and Love in Society) programme.

The debate about free education and other aspects of the system must be pursued with the economic strategies to make it possible. But the fate of the children who are the future must be treated as a national crisis spinning out of control.