Pandemonium broke out at the Houston Secondary School this afternoon when a female teacher armed herself with a cutlass following an attack by a parent and a student of the school.
The teacher, Kimone Gentle, who has been teaching at the school for several years, said she was forced to defend herself.
Both the teacher and the parent filed complaints at the Ruimveldt Police Station.
Late this afternoon, the Education Minister Priya Manickchand as well as the President and General Secretary of the Teachers’ Union visited the teacher at the Police station. Attorney Darren Wade secured the teacher’s release. The teacher, while not wanting to go into detail about the incident, said she is concerned that attacking teachers is becoming a new pandemic.
She said she was attacked and chose to defend herself.
GTU President Mark Lyte told News Source that the issue must be addressed head on, and there is need for legislation to be updated that will protect teachers in the classroom and in the schools.
“This seems to be the new way of parents and students trying to resolve their challenges with their teachers and it is really bothersome and worrying”, Lyte said.
He told News Source that gone are the days when parents would visit the schools and speak to the teachers to understand what was happening with their children. The GTU President said that today, the new way of doing things appear to be to attack the teachers and that cannot be allowed.
The Ministry of Education has repeatedly made it clear that it has a zero tolerance policy against violence in the schools and violence against its teachers.
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