PRIME Minister P J Patterson said this week that violence in schools was unacceptable and urged a return to a system where teachers earned and commanded respect in the classroom.

Patterson, who addressed Wednesday’s official opening and handing over of a new basic school in Gregory Park, St Catherine, spoke against the background of a number of violent attacks in schools in which students and teachers have been injured. The latest reported incident was the fatal stabbing of a student by his classmate at the St James High School just under two weeks ago.

The prime minister said the country could not continue to have the kind of anti-social behaviour now evident in schools. “The problem of indiscipline was not one of which should be addressed by teachers and administrators alone, but that parents also had a primary role to play in correcting the behaviour of students,” said Patterson. The process, he said, should begin at the basic school level where children are trained to have respect for their teachers.

At the same time tourism and sport minister, Portia Simpson Miller said the crime scourge plaguing society, including “normally peaceful school communities”, demanded the input of every Jamaican to eradicate it.

Simpson Miller was speaking Tuesday at the Clan Carthy High School in Kingston against the background of a violent confrontation at the school last month in which a teacher was attacked and a student injured.

The student was subsequently arrested and charged by the police with wounding. He appeared in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court last week and was bailed to return on Monday, July 1, when the case will again be mentioned.

The tourism and sport minister, who said she intended to address students in schools across the island, said the time for making a change in turning the violence around was running out. “We have no time to lose. The enormity of the danger confronting us all is clear for everyone to see. There is a role for every single one of us (and) I would be very disappointed indeed if I were to learn that everyone of you refused to step forward and play your part in resolving the situation without bloodshed or animosity,” she told the more than 700 students and teachers.

She said that while the incidence of violence at Clan Carthy was regrettable and a sad reflection on the school community, most successful people know how to use the past as a stepping stone for the future. “They do not dwell on it, wasting time wishing it were different, staying downhearted, feeling guilty and refusing to get up and get on with their lives,” said Simpson Miller. She added that successful people learn from their mistakes and start all over again, pointing out that the past always offer opportunities to make tomorrow better.

Simpson-Miller, told the Observer that her visit to Clan Carthy was part of a tour (of schools) she launched following growing requests for her to address the island’s students on important issues concerning adolescence. She said that her last address to students was made in Montego Bay last weekend.