‘Send them home’ won’t solve school problems

FORMER education minister and Opposition MP Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly says the call by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar for teachers and principals to send misbehaving students straight home is simply placing a plaster on a sore.

In a back-to-school message Sunday, Persad-Bissessar urged teachers and principals to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to disruptive students and parents for the new academic year which began yesterday.

The Prime Minister called on the educators to not to allow badly behaved students to disrupt the education of others, saying: “I strongly urge you to adopt a zero-tolerance policy to disrespectful and misbehaved students and parents. Don’t stress out yourselves trying to help persons who don’t want to be helped; if students refuse to behave properly and parents are ignoring your concerns, send them straight home and let them and their parents battle it out in their house.”