GOVERNMENT has been urged to do a national survey on the frequency and nature of school-related violence.

Pauletta Chevannes, co-ordinator of the Change From Within Project, said Wednesday that despite mounting reports of school violence, which he said has been challenging the best efforts of educators and the government itself, no national survey has been done to date.

“I would like to suggest a few actions. as we grapple with this issue,” Chevannes said at the launch of UNICEF’s publication, State of the World’s Children Report 2004 at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, Chevannes suggested, should conduct a national census on the level and nature of violence in the schools; that a profile of ‘schools at risk’ be drawn up with a view to targeting these schools as urgent cases for intervention (and) that there be meaningful collaboration between agencies working on violence prevention and reduction in schools.

She cited several individual studies and news reports which confirm that there is a growing incidence of violence among children and adolescents.

One of the reports, done by the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) last year, documented nearly 60 cases of attacks of students by other students or members of surrounding communities and 17 cases in which teachers were victims.

And the 2003 Ministry of Health’s Jamaica Injury Surveillance System Report stated that four per cent of injuries in the accident and emergency department of nine government hospitals across the island occurred in schools. Sixty five per cent of the violence-related injuries was among the age group 0 -18.

“An interesting observation is that in several of the reported cases over the years, there are schools that are mentioned over and over; that mainly boys are the perpetrators as well as the victims; the age cohort is between 11 and 18 years and that the population of violent offenders is between three and five per cent of respective school populations,” Chevannes said.

She said the problem was perpetuated because some of the basic underlying factors were not being adequately addressed.

“. We have a generation of children who are being ‘schooled’ both through social factors such as dysfunctional family and community influences as well as personal experience of violence and crime, into an acceptance of violence as the real alternative to conflict management and conflict resolution.”

UNICEF representative, Bertrand Bainvel, who presented a copy of the report to Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson, welcomed the passing of the Child Care Protection Act in the House on Tuesday. (See related story on Page 16).

But he said that while significant gains have been made in education. the learning environment is being influenced by what is happening in the family and community.

“We are concerned about the level of violence in the schools, the under-achievement of boys and the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people,” he said. The level of physical abuse experienced by some boys at home is one of the factors contributing to their academic under-achievement.

Meanwhile, Henry-Wilson said the child care legislation recognised that children need to have a cradling environment that would help them realise their full potential.