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PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Apr. 20, (CMC) – President of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Devanand Sinanan, said ,today, a video showing school girls in a confrontation with armed police officers demonstrates disrespect for authority on a “whole new level”.
The video, which has been posted on the social network, Facebook, showed a group of young people — including girls in school uniforms — engaging in a scuffle on a street in the center of the capital, on Tuesday
When the police intervened, the school children could be seen in a heated confrontation with the police officers, with one girl, in particular, shouting and screaming at the lawmen.
A girl student screams at a police officer in T&T.
“We have a situation where student violence has been taken to a whole new level and therefore we condemn such behaviour (and) it will also remind us, if students are prepared to challenge officers in uniform in that manner, what will they do to teachers in the classrooms.
“Again it is a reflection of the extent to which students have absolutely no respect for law and order and the arms of the state that is responsible for protecting us.”
Media reports, today, said police officers on patrol outside the school, attended by one of the schoolgirls, were attacked by students, who threw missiles at them.
Sinanan said such an incident cannot be taken lightly.
“We need to be cognizant of that reality. It is far too often that we hear reports of citizens engaging in that kind of behaviour with police officers and now, we have that kind of behaviour filtering down to our young people, our students in uniform, and that is something we cannot take lightly.”
The Ministry of Education has not yet issued any statement on the incident.
Meanwhile, a joint Parliament Committee meeting, today, heard from a primary school child calling for an end to bullying at schools.
The student warned that, if measures were not put in place to end such incidents, it could lead to acts of murder and suicides in the future.
