Two days in last week—Tuesday and Wednesday—saw two similar but unrelated incidents of school violence to the extent that blood was spilled and in one case a child is still hospitalised.
On Tuesday, a 13-year-old third form student of the Dolphin Secondary School was stabbed twice by another student at the school, resulting in him sustaining internal injuries serious enough to warrant prolonged hospitalisation. Shane Hackette was wounded with ‘seamstress scissors’ in the back and chest, which reportedly damaged a lung.
The next day, an ongoing feud between students of two different schools, ended with Jermaine Bright, 13, a third former of the East Ruimveldt Secondary School being stabbed by a third form student of the Lodge Community High School, also with scissors. This incident did not occur on the premises of either school, but nearby.
These are by no means the only two such incidents to have occurred in schools and involving students.
In September last year, a 17-year-old student of St Mary’s Secondary School sustained two stab wounds to his chest after he was attacked by another student. Trevon Fenty was stabbed in his chest with a pair of scissors, by another student who was said to be part of a gang at the school.
In May last year, a 17-year-old was stabbed to death at a Campbellville location where lessons were being held. Shane George, a student of St George’s Secondary School and a resident of Roxanne Burnham Gardens was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. In October, his 18-year-old alleged assailant Akeem Roberts was committed to stand trial in the High Court for his murder. George was stabbed with a knife reportedly following an argument over ‘name brand’.
Just about four months earlier, in February, 17-year-old Anfernee Bowman was stabbed to death outside a North Ruimveldt location where he attended lessons. The Chase Academy student had reportedly had an ongoing feud with his alleged attacker, 17-year-old Samuel Cornelius, who was subsequently charged with murder.
There were three reported incidents of stabbings at Lodge Secondary in 2010 and in 2009 there were stabbing incidents at Diamond Secondary and Freeburg Secondary.
While this column today only looks at stabbings, it is a fact that school violence in general in this country is on the rise. However, there seems to be a perception that the authorities are not doing much to arrest this problem. And this perhaps is fuelling the increase in violence.
That said, it must be noted that for the most part violent acts in schools involving students tend to occur in what might be termed the weaker schools. These are schools which are mostly in south Georgetown and do not have a track record of performing well at exams. Their intake of students is from the larger batch of those whose results at the National Grade Assessments were below the bar. In some cases, these students are the late bloomers, the plodders and those who are not academically inclined, and maybe never will be.
Ninety-nine per cent of these children are from working class and single parent homes; their parents tend not to have much academic acumen either and therefore, for them high school life is 1,000 times harder than it is for other students. Their behaviours in school tend to mirror what they absorb in the communities in which they are growing up, hence the violence.
This is not to say that working class or single parents or those from the poorer urban communities are all inclined to violence or do not do all they can to ensure that their children succeed. There are several instances where children rise up and excel in spite of their circumstances and these are celebrated.
There is the perception, despite what it says to the contrary that the Ministry of Education does not have a handle on what goes on in the average public school. It also does not appear to have a plan to address school violence although it claims to be working to address the situation.
Violence in Guyana’s schools can still be considered random and it also has not reached the terrifying stage where the weapon of choice is a gun. One hopes that the ministry is not deferring action until it gets to that stage. If the ministry has a plan to arrest school violence it needs to refrain from its current gum-lipped stance and clue schools, parents and the wider society in. Whatever the plan is the ministry must be aware that it cannot execute it alone.
