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Near­ly 2,000 stu­dents were sus­pend­ed in a sin­gle school term dur­ing the 2021/2022 aca­d­e­m­ic year—a star­tling in­di­ca­tor of ris­ing dis­ci­pline chal­lenges in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

A break­down of the fig­ures doc­u­ment­ed in the 2022 Na­tion­al School Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix showed that be­tween April 19 and Ju­ly 1, a to­tal of 1,970 stu­dents—1,339 boys and 631 girls—were dis­ci­plined for a stag­ger­ing 29 dif­fer­ent of­fences.

These in­clude se­ri­ous breach­es such as gam­bling, pos­ses­sion of drugs and al­co­hol, van­dal­ism, rob­bery, ex­tor­tion, cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion, bul­ly­ing, as well as dis­rup­tive con­duct and in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour.