Click to view full size

As 95 spe­cial­ly trained Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cers en­ter their fi­nal week of train­ing ahead of their de­ploy­ment to schools deemed high-risk on Sep­tem­ber 8, stake­hold­ers are ex­press­ing con­cerns about the new mea­sure.

As­so­ci­a­tion of Prin­ci­pals of Pub­lic Sec­ondary Schools (APPSS) pres­i­dent Shar­lene Hicks-Rae­burn yes­ter­day said some prin­ci­pals were not in favour of po­lice of­fi­cers in their schools and en­vi­ron­ment. She said the method is not uni­ver­sal­ly re­gard­ed as an ef­fec­tive mea­sure to ad­dress vi­o­lence and in­stead called for ad­di­tion­al sup­port for stu­dent su­per­vi­sion dur­ing lunch pe­ri­ods.

“Fur­ther­more, some prin­ci­pals sug­gest that SRPs might be more ef­fec­tive if de­ployed out­side schools in the morn­ings and af­ter­noons to mon­i­tor stu­dents and re­duce loi­ter­ing and fight­ing in key ar­eas,” she told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.