KINGSTON, Jamaica – Education Minister Ronald Thwaites today commended the administration of Papine High School in St Andrew after a gun was allegedly found in a 13-year-old male student’s bag on Thursday.

Read: Cops find gun in student’s bag

Thwaites said the presence of the gun in the student’s school bag was detected using a metal detector provided by the ministry during routine security checks on Thursday.

The police were summoned and upon investigation they identified the gun as a nine mm firearm with 12 live rounds.

Thwaites in a press release today, noted that this incident, along with the recent finding of ammunitions on a school boy at Brimmervale High in St Mary, underscores the importance of school administrators utilising the metal detectors provided.

At the start of the new school year the Ministry of Education distributed more than 130 metal detectors to high schools.

The ministry’s Safety and Security Unit also distributed revised policy guidelines and several safety and security manuals to schools.