MONTEGO BAY, St James – Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson says government spent $30 million last year on violence-related incidents that occurred in local public schools.

“This is great cause for concern… just think about what that amount of money could do in the education system,” Henry-Wilson said during her address at yesterday’s opening of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association conference at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort here.

Arguing that there was “no one solution to what is becoming a widespread problem”, the minister said her ministry would be introducing new measures to deal with the problem, which include the appointment of psychologists to evaluate problem students.

“We have also been provided with 126 positions for special educator for this year and we will almost double our guidance counsellors, especially in schools located in specific areas,” Henry-Wilson told the more than 250 teachers gathered at yesterday’s opening session of the conference.

The education ministry has been grappling with the widespread problem of violence in schools and anti-social behaviour among students for several years. Only two weeks ago, the police were called in to quell a fierce fight between rival gangs at the Kingston Technical High School in which one boy was stabbed and another received bruises when a belt buckle was used to hit him repeatedly on his head. A week prior to that incident, three boys were accused of attempting to rape a female teacher on that same school grounds.

But the Kingston Technical High School incidents aside, the education ministry have had to deal with several other violent clashes between students over the recent years, some of which have resulted in death.

So bad is the situation that last year the education ministry announced a new programme – the Adjustment Social Integration Programme – aimed at identifying and separating disruptive students.

At the time of the announcement, the education minister said the disruptive students, whose behaviour teachers believed pose a threat to other members of the school community, would be withdrawn for a period of time and placed in a dedicated environment. The flip side was that there would be a reduction in the incidents of separation through suspensions and expulsions from the formal education system, as well as providing educational alternatives for students who have been separated.

Yesterday, Henry-Wilson hinted that the schools could soon be better equipped to keep problem students in check, saying that the government would be moving to implement a proper information system that will allow the ministry to store and track data on the students. This, she said, would allow schools to make decisions based on empirical data.

In the meantime, she told the teachers that the government would be implementing a raft of new measures this year in a bid to address other problems affecting the education sector such as literacy and numeracy, GSAT performance, inadequate space at schools and the supply, quality and distribution of teachers.