Gang violence in schools: Parents need to play a part, not only teachers – Citizens

In the past week, there have been at least two instances of gang violence in and outside of city schools. Only four days ago, an air gun and other sharp weapons were found at Lodge Secondary School.

A team from MTV News Update earlier on Monday spoke to citizens on these developments and asked for their recommendations on how parents and other stakeholders could address this situation.

Samuel Ferdinand says that apart from the teachers at schools, parents need to play a major role in decreasing the instances of gang violence in schools.

Samuel Ferdinand.

Ferdinand said, “I think the parents should be more advanced, [on] how they scold their children, advising their children how to socialise with other friends and colleagues and so on.”

“Parents should look into things when their children leaving their house, know what their children are leaving with in their bag and so on. That’s the main thing becah there’s a lot of violence going around, children being murdered, children does get choke in school. Some parents are very lackadaisical they don’t look into their children they just leave their children to do what they want.”

Meanwhile, Estal Talmakund, a parent, noted that most schools do not have proper security guards stationed at the schools. This, he said, must not continue.

Estal Talmakund.

“Not this security service that hire these pensioners, some people got a broken limb and disabled, they should not use those people for security. "As much as the ministry has police and able body security at their places, they should have that at school also, to ensure that things are good and security should be trained to talk to students. “

Beresford Martin, a grandfather, expressed a similar opinion.

Beresford Martin.

“It starts from home too, from a home and then you got to get security and you got to get proper security and not no one guard.”

Irene Roach, recommended that church sessions be brought back in the schools to assist in the social aspect of it. In addition, she says parents need to sit down and speak with their child on what is right from wrong.

Irene Roach.

“You see [we] have a lot of homes that are single parents. We should get the men to sit and speak with these children, I feel we’ll be better cause look at the crime rate, most are the boys because they don’t have fathers to speak with them.”

“When mothers go to work, what happens? What happens? So we got to have manpower for these children,” Roach expressed.