— says Education Ministry following incidents at Lodge, Campbellville secondary schools

THE Ministry of Education has implemented measures to ensure the safety of staff and students at city schools where issues recently occurred.
Interventions at the Lodge Secondary School and Campbellville Secondary School came as a result of recent incidents occurring at both schools.

Teachers at the Lodge Secondary School on Wednesday participated in a peaceful protest demonstration as they raised concerns about their safety in the work environment.
When the Guyana Chronicle visited the school, the teachers were making their way inside for a meeting with representatives of the Guyana Teachers Union and the ministry, even as there was a police presence at the school.

According to a senior teacher, the issues stemmed from an incident a day earlier which saw intruders entering the school with weapons to attack a teacher.

“This triggered from a previous altercation where they would have [sic] come to the compound and these teachers who were attacked made a report and these teachers continue to video them as they come into the compound to rob our children and so they’re now going to the teachers,” the senior teacher told this publication.

Ministry of Education Public Relations Manager Murtland Haley said on Wednesday, following a meeting with the teachers, that a number of measures were implemented at the school beginning on Thursday.
“These initial measures are geared towards making the school environment safer for teachers, students and staff of the school,” said Haley.

As a result of one of the measures implemented, which included the searching of students’ bags before they enter the school, staff on Thursday discovered an air gun in the bag of a Grade 11 student. It was later revealed that the discovery is being dealt with by the Guyana Police Force.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, a number of videos were circulating on social media of a reported incident occurring at the Campbellville Secondary School.
According to the Ministry of Education representative, there was a confrontation between two students of the said school and one of the students brought in friends who were not students of the school, to settle the matter.

As a result of this, the police were then called into the school. Haley told the Guyana Chronicle that while there were no serious physical injuries from the incident, teachers and students in the lower grades were traumatised.

“Our welfare officers as well as the Chief Education Officer and Assistant Chief Education Officer (Secondary) visited the school after being informed of the incident,” he said,
He iterated the ministry’s zero-tolerance policy on violence in schools, even as the ministry urges parents to be more involved in their children’s lives in order to steer them away from being involved in such activities.