Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC has agreed with Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro on his move to deal with violence in schools.
On Tuesday, during his official ceremony to take the reins as Police Commissioner, Mr Guevarro vowed to tackle school violence, warning parents to “control” their children.
Responding to a question in the Lower House on Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Persad-Bissessar threw her support behind the new Commissioner of Police and assured that security protocols would be reviewed at all schools.
“The Government has moved rapidly to engage in a new Commissioner of Police, and if we listened yesterday to the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner is very much on spot about how we can help deal with security in schools, violence in our schools. This has been plaguing the system for many, many years and therefore, what I would say is we do have a plan. We do have a programme to work with our police officers. During our campaign, we talked about deploying police officers in schools to assist with security in the schools. We talked about other measures to help with that. In this particular instance, Mr. Speaker, I am advised by the Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education that social workers and consultants would conduct sessions regarded trauma sustained during that particular incident and of course we are reviewing the current security protocols at that school and all schools in the country.”