Dear Editor,
My heart bleeds for my beloved Guyana. The dastardly act of an alleged student’s father entering St. Agnes Primary School and kicking the student’s teacher several times, has left a sickening feeling in my stomach. Upon seeing a child or anyone kick another person, my elders would have berated them by saying that only donkeys kick and they would have attached some form of severe punishment. We have evidently sunk into a cesspool of lawlessness and inhumanity and we need to muster all our strength to rise out of it. This incident comes on the heels of a recent assault by a male student on a female student and an attack on another teacher by the mother of one of her students. This leads one to conclude that these events are occurring because the perpetrator in the first incident received only a slap on the wrists for her reprehensible conduct. Anger and revulsion should be felt at these ongoing invasions and assaults at our respectable and vital institutions. In the two most recent attacks, the beatings were inflicted on females. This shows the scant regard being given to the female gender who would have borne and carried the perpetrators in their wombs for months, ensuring their entry into the world and in some cases even their growth and development into adulthood and in some cases, even late into their lives. These displays of violence by parents towards teachers indicate an appalling disrespect for teachers by too many people. To compound the mayhem, these brutal scenes have occurred in the presence of students. These would have had a terrible impact on those malleable minds.
For more than a decade in Guyana, there have been instances of violence between students and teachers, students and other students and teachers and parents. There have also been cases of sexual impropriety between teachers and students. Approximately a year ago, we saw senior officials of a Ministry involved in an altercation within a Ministry during working hours. Even governmental Ministers have conducted themselves in melees in public and used offensive language at those times. We have entered an era of barbarity. Maybe these assaults on teachers by students’ parents stem from parents being allowed to inflict corporal punishment on their children and knowing that we live in a society where physical attacks on others are not treated severely by our laws. We need to have laws implemented to abolish corporal punishment and impose incarceration for assault. Teachers should be given their due respect and protection. On this occasion there is not the excuse that the perpetrators were minors and not able to be dealt with in the harshest possible manner. Incarceration for a long period is justifiable. This will send a strong signal to any others thinking that such action will see them getting off scot-free and not face the long arm of the law.
Minister Nicolette Henry needs to condemn the actions of the perpetrator. Minister, the nation and the world are watching. Use Facebook and all the available media to dispel onlookers’ opinions that Guyana is a barbaric or indecent society. Let people know that Guyana is capable of utilising measures to uphold decency, order and progress. Additionally, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo or President Granger should make an immediate appearance to the Nation strongly condemning these assaults in schools or elsewhere and it should be stated clearly that severe punishments will be meted out to the perpetrators. Maybe surveillance cameras should be placed in schools with a guard or a few guards at the entrance of each school and a monitor for viewing the activities within schools. Let us restore our schools to places of learning, socialisation and safety where the inhabitants would never expect its tranquility to be disrupted by any fracas between adults or students.
Yours faithfully,
Conrad Barrow
