A Corporate Area high school principal is calling for parents and individuals who vend illicit substances to children to be held accountable as substance abuse is contributing to the violent behaviour being exhibited by some students.

“We need to get back to our parents being held accountable… I know about the child diversion policy and so on, but our parents are not being held accountable enough because a lot of our parents are allowing social media to raise their children. From they are very young we give them a phone or a tablet to keep them quiet, and we don’t understand [the consequences],” principal of Pembroke Hall High School in St Andrew Reverend Claude Ellis stated during last Thursday’s education meeting organised by the Kiwanis Club of North St Andrew, themed ‘Safer Schools Now: Strategies to Combat Violence in Schools’.

“I want us to also recognise that the people who sell around the school, in front of the school and so on, they also must be held accountable, because they are selling the vape, and the alcohol, and the cigarettes, and all these things to our children and they are not being held accountable,” the principal said.