Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has warned pri­ma­ry school stu­dents that get­ting in­to trou­ble at a young age can have last­ing con­se­quences on their fu­ture, in­clud­ing missed job op­por­tu­ni­ties, dif­fi­cul­ty pur­su­ing high­er ed­u­ca­tion, and trou­ble trav­el­ling abroad.

Beck­les used her ad­dress at the San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day to con­front the is­sue of school vi­o­lence. She ref­er­enced the re­cent beat­ing of a 15-year-old Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent in Cou­va, which led to five sec­ondary school girls be­ing charged with as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm.

“How many of you are aware of that?” she asked the stu­dents, not­ing that some seemed un­fa­mil­iar with the in­ci­dent.