AS a measure to combat violent and delinquent behaviour among schoolchildren, government will be establishing a new residential institution to transform children with severe behavioural problems.

A venue in Alligator Pond, St Elizabeth, is targeted to house the institution, which will initially cater to 40 boys and 10 girls.

“The Ministry of Education has decided on a timeout facility for disruptive students. This facility will come on stream in September of this year,” special advisor to the education minister Alphansus Davis announced Wednesday.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Audrey Sewell, told the Observer that school principals have indicated that there were a number of maladaptive students in their schools who continuously disrupt the learning environment.

“They have seen where when these children are not around the learning environment is quite different, so we took the decision to have a facility where we can put those children over a period of time and work with them (disruptive students) to address some of the behavioural problems,” Sewell said.

The permanent secretary said the new institution would have a high school curriculum but with special staff and facilities. She said it is expected that students will spend about three months in the facility, after which they would be reintegrated into their original school or in another institution if it is their best interest that they be reassigned elsewhere.

“The children there will be treated on a case by case basis,” Sewell said.

The permanent secretary said the ministry was comfortable with proposed location, which is a “small hotel” in Alligator Pond. She said other facilities were looked at, including two in Westmoreland and Tranquility Bay in St Elizabeth, which formerly housed a controversial reformatory school for delinquent American children. Tranquility Bay, which is known for its harsh “tough love” programmes, was reportedly the subject of several lawsuits before it was closed down in January.

Sewell said the students for the new school would be selected from the existing Programme for Alternative Student Support, which provides intervention for students with behaviour problems.

Davis also disclosed that the ministry approved the establishment of deans of discipline in high schools, and that an agreement has been reached with the organisation Peace and Love in Society to train schools in dispute resolution.

The ministry officials were participating in a youth forum staged Wednesday at the Mico University College in Kingston in collaboration with the Ministry of National Security under the theme ‘Promoting a Culture of Security and Safety in Schools’.