Faced with increasing incidents of violence in schools, the government is examining heightened security as well as the introduction of counselling as part of schools’ curriculum, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said yesterday.

Over the past few months there have been reports of student on student violence in both primary and secondary schools and only last week there was a report in Linden about a gang of persons entered a school and severely beat two students.

Asked about government’s response to the recent upsurge, Luncheon yesterday acknowledged that Guyana, like many other countries, has seen “more and more expressions of violence.” He added that there continues to be “a recognition that a highly focused approach would need to be taken and some of it has to do with infrastructure, in safe guarding the confines of the schools…” He noted that at many schools there are no fences to keep out persons from the community and he mentioned that there is need for more heightened security as well. Luncheon said this continues be the government’s focus in addition to investigating the incidents as fast as they occur.

He said too that the Ministry of Education and its stakeholders are addressing the issue of introducing counselling in the curriculum.