School violence a reflection of the society: BUT President

There is a suggestion that the indiscipline and violence being seen across schools in this country are really a reflection of what is happening in the Barbadian society.

That’s the view of one of the island’s trade unionist, President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Pedro Shepherd, who was at the time responding to a question from the media on whether there was a need for conflict resolution programmes in the school system. The veteran educator’s comments came earlier this week following a mass meeting in Queen’s Park with about 500 members of the BUT.
 
“It is a societal problem and we have to get to the root of the problem… Too many of our families are broken, too many of our families are relaxed and so persons are at very tender ages allowed to do as they like and we need to, as I said last week, bring back moral and religious education in schools, so that children understand that they are children up to a certain age, 16 or 18, and then they become a young adult and it is from there that they would then have certain privileges and so on,” he said.
 
With that in mind, the BUT president is adamant that until such subjects are reintroduced on the curriculum of the schools in this country,  he does think any amount of conflict resolution would really make a significant dent in what is being seen in the island’s school system. (JRT)

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