As Par­lia­ment pre­pares to de­bate laws af­fect­ing school vi­o­lence, parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and chil­dren’s ac­cess to so­cial me­dia, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) says it in­tends to make its voice heard.

Speak­ing at the NPTA’s 66th an­nu­al mid-year con­ven­tion at the Princes Town East Sec­ondary School on Sat­ur­day, pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art point­ed to three pieces of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion he be­lieves will shape the fu­tures of par­ents and chil­dren. These are amend­ments to mod­ernise the Ed­u­ca­tion Act, a parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty frame­work aimed at tack­ling school vi­o­lence and mea­sures reg­u­lat­ing so­cial me­dia use by chil­dren un­der the age of 12.

Dur­ing a state­ment in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said a parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty frame­work would be among the key pieces of leg­is­la­tion her ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to in­tro­duce dur­ing the cur­rent par­lia­men­tary term. She said the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to make par­ents or guardians more legal­ly ac­count­able for the be­hav­iour and wel­fare of their chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly where chil­dren are in­volved in vi­o­lence, bul­ly­ing, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, or per­sis­tent mis­con­duct.