Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, teachers president, Mr. Martin Lumpkin. Good morning to you.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Hi, good morning.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: It's nice to have you with us here this morning, Mr. Lumpkin. We are discussing on the air topic that we've been discussing as a nation for a pretty long period of time. And that's the issue of schools, violence, delinquent children, how we treat with them the issues that keep coming up over and over again. This morning the suggestion that is being discussed is more police officers, more soldiers playing a more active role in trying to combat school violence. Your story is right next to the one with David Nakit saying that you're calling for police presence at high risk schools. Now it's not the first time that we've heard this and we've been told time and time again that there are measures in place where police patrol and all these kinds of things.
What's the thought process this time around? The suggestion is more police, more soldiers and whatever else.
How would that work?
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Okay, so we have the situation whereby the community is influencing. The schools are part of an essential part of the community.
And more and more we are finding that you have the influence of the community within the school either by outside forces or outside persons, or even the influence of the students coming from the community.
Now if we look at some of the violence that takes place that is not influenced by the students. So we had recently the shooting outside the Gloucester Lodge moravian school and we had instances in the past of such. That's one area then secondly, we had the instance allegedly of the Chibonas north and South secondary schools where they would have attacked a maxi to get to one of the students.
If in the interim, and we are saying that these are interim measures, if there's the presence of law enforcement officers, it will be for a part a deterrent. These forces have to engage in violence and indiscipline.
Now violence and indiscipline is a national issue.
So we are affected, citizens are affected by crime and criminal activities.
It is something that is permeating to our school as well. So we are seeing symptoms of a bigger picture, a bigger disease that is affecting our schools and nation. As our own tutor is of the opinion that we need to treat with the cause of these diseases and not just the symptoms. So it will take a national effort, all arms of government, all arms of ngos, faith based organizations and community groups in order to bring some level of intervention and to start to reverse what is taking place. We also have to have the conversation of the education system.
What is the nature and purpose of education?
Is education failing a number of our students such that they are attracted to these gangs and these groups and not attracted to getting an education which can take them out of their present situation?
I know I went on off the security and so on.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: They're all related and they're intertwined one way or the other. So I understand why you would bring all these topics because in treating with the problem, you want to treat with all elements of it, not just one, and leave all the rest to fester.
There are some who suggest that the call for more police and more army and everybody else is just a knee jerk reaction, because while you would have them on spot or in the school or whatever else for a specific period of time, the children are left to their own deviances after that.
And somebody suggested as well that it's not a sustainable thing. But Mr. Lunkin, I know tutor would have been involved in some of these discussions on their own and with school authorities. The issue of what happens to a troubled child has been a discussion we've been having for a long period of time. Last we heard from the minister of education was that mandatory service. And since then we've heard nothing else of it.
But what does tutor suggest we do when it comes to children who are habitually offenders, when it comes to violence and all these other kinds of things? What's the proposal?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: It's the actual working of the system.
So we have division within the Ministry of Education, which is the student support services division, and there are officers within that division who would intervene when it comes to behavior that is deviant and not what it should be. So if we work these systems properly and if we have the resources, then we believe that we can intervene such that a student does not reach to the point of consistently being deviant. However, if we have tried everything and the interventions do not work at that level, there needs to be intervention at a higher level.
So for example, within student support services, there's the guidance officer, right? But those are really career guidance officers. You need to have the psycho and psychosocial workers which can assist as well.
Now the referral system throughout the school system can work, but you are depending on sometimes school officials to work this, who have to also teach their class.
Now if you have persons who are dedicated, and let me just point out as well, the guidance officers are assigned to more than one school, sometimes three, four school.
So the meaningful intervention at one school cannot really take place because they have to focus on other schools. Ideally, if you have one school, then the intervention can be meaningful. And will you have less persons? Because, as you know, outside influence also would play a factor into persons becoming devious.
There's allegedly drug intervention, persons selling drugs allegedly on school compounds. And so. And that's because of a wider gangs. And so. And these would need outside intervention of other agencies.
So there are systems in place if the suspension system needs to be implemented. And tutor is of the opinion that this should not be the first case scenario. But after all that has been tried, then if there needs to be, and if the child is suspended, there must be some additional program to assist the student. They cannot be suspended and sent home or sent into the community to be further influenced.
Yeah.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Okay, so here's another question. Is the situation with school violence as bad as is being made out in the public domain, or is it that the isolated incidents are just being highlighted because of social media and everything else? What's the real situation?
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Because of social media, you will be seeing a lot of these violence and indiscipline in the public domain.
We are of opinion is too fast happening too much in our school. And we are getting more and more schools that were not previously under the radar of the Ministry of Education in relation to violence and indiscipline.
But it is creeping in slowly.
Yeah. It is becoming a little more uncomfortable for our members to have to deal with.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: I know that we can speak about this issue for a very long period of time.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Because it's confronting teachers and schools and administrations every single day. And we had spoken to your vice president some time ago, and he went into great detail to tell us how difficult the situation is and how gangs have infiltrated these schools now. And you have children who are active gang members in these schools now. So it changes the dynamic of. It's not just a troubled child that you're dealing with, but somebody who is prone to criminality. In a very real way. The average individual looks on from the outside and they don't understand some of the challenges in the way that teachers would have to deal with them. Because a 14 year old, 15 year old today is not the 14 and 15 year old from two or three decades ago. It's a totally different individual that you're dealing with. That's just one topic, but we have a couple of minutes with you again. There's another topic that I wanted to speak about some time ago, not too long, and we've been having the discussion for a while. Migrant children, Venezuelans, obviously dominate the topic. Because of the number of them that we've registered and the language barrier. And the discussion recently was, what do we do about children who've come across with these migrants? And their parents now have the status because they were regularized and registered and everything else, and we need to have them in our schools. What's happening with that? Are we making any progress towards putting venezuelan children in school?
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Once the migrants are registered and they can obtain a student visa, then they can be enrolled in our public and public assisted school. However, we have undocumented migrants within our communities, and some of them who are minors, who are of school age. Now, I am aware that the law of Trinidad and Tobago allows if a child has been born in Trinidad and Tobago, then they are a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago by birth, and so they can access these school systems. However, I know some of those parents will be undocumented migrants and would be fearful of going to the school, because if immigration gets wind of it, they can deport them. However, the undocumented minors who are of school age is concerned now, the United nations rights of the child gives the right to all children that of schooling. However, we, our law states that the potential student must be either a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago or has a visa.
Those undocumented students are still out of school and there has not been any movement that we are seeing when it comes to having those students allowed education in Trinidad and Tobago. The Catholic Education Board of Management did state to the Ministry of Education that they are prepared to allow students into their school, that they have put the requisite resources in place in terms of training. And so we are not certain of how much of a training is that. However, the laws have to be amended and as far as we are aware, it is still at the attorney general. So there has not been any movement towards that.
As far as we are aware.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: It's a troubling matter for more than one reason, because I spoke about it last week. I saw a couple of children, venezuelan children, in Chagonas, walking the road, 10:00 in the day, three of them, and none could have been older than eleven. So it says that while their parents out earning a living, they are very much unsupervised and left to their own devices, which we know can get them in a lot of trouble. Mr. Lumpkin, I want to thank you. We're going to have to leave our interview this morning. I want to thank you for being with us here this morning and sharing some of Tutor's insights into some of the matters that we continue to discuss. And I'm sure that we'll have to speak to you again because some of these things ain't going anywhere fast, and that's for sure. Thank you so much for being with us here this morning.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: You're welcome. And thank you for having me on the program.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: And that, of course, ladies and gentlemen, tutors president, that's Martin Luther Ken.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
