Incidents of violence against children, road traffic fatalities, and bomb threats at schools made 2024 a daunting year for the nation’s children, executive members of the National Secondary Students’ Council (NSSC) have argued.

“The youths have faced so much grief within the past year, and not only grief, but also just very frustrating circumstances, especially when we think about the bomb threats that would have really impacted our education,” said NSSC President Laurel Williams.

“I remember particularly, sometime around May, June, when we were sitting our external examinations — examinations that are very important, not determining but contributing significantly to our future, there was a particular school that received a bomb threat and the students had to exit in the middle of their external examinations. I just believe that in a place where we are really supposed to be safe, it’s supposed to be our safe place, it’s so unfortunate that such a space has been invaded by others. All in all, it was a very daunting year,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Examinations at Kingston College, Campion College, and Holmwood Technical High were disrupted in May last year after the schools received bomb threats. Meadowbrook Preparatory and High schools also received a bomb threat in November last year.

A 16-year-old student of Grange Hill High School was killed in April last year when rival gangs engaged in a shoot-out in the community. A female student was also shot and injured during the incident.

Another 16-year-old student, this time from Porus High School, was hospitalised after he was stabbed last October, allegedly by his schoolmate, during an altercation on the school grounds.

Additionally, a female student was among three people who died as a result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle collision in October last year on the Greenside main road in Trelawny.

While on his way home on November 20 last year, a grade seven student of Denham Town High School was stabbed to death and a schoolgirl was placed into custody in relation to that killing. That same day, a female student was attacked by another at the entrance of Oberlin High School, resulting in multiple facial injuries.

According to the Island Traffic Authority traffic crashes update, 118 children between the ages of zero and 19 died in motor vehicle collisions.

The Ministry of Education has, over the years, provided counselling support to families of the children involved in violent attacks as well as students and the school communities.

Additionally, several initiatives geared towards reducing violence in schools have been implemented, including a Safety and Security Policy which outlines how to implement physical security measures such as searches of students’ school bags, organising training programmes for school personnel to recognise warning signs and intervene effectively, counselling at-risk individuals, developing crisis and emergency plans, assigning roles for students, parents, and the community, and addressing and resolving conflicts in a constructive manner.

School resource officers were also called on to conduct searches if requested, conduct regular school visits and motorised patrols in the general school environs before and after school hours, and regular patrols in transport town centres to prevent students from loitering during school hours.

Williams shared that from what she observed, students relied heavily on each other to get through the events of 2024.

“I’m not sure the student population has really fully coped with all that’s going on. In truth, I think that they are just holding on. I can definitely say that the mental health of our students is something that I think we have kind of neglected, having experienced all that they experienced in the past year, from the road traffic incidents to the bomb threats and violence in our schools,” she said.

“I think sometimes we focus on the ones involved in the incidents, which makes sense yes, but also I think sometimes we forget the ones that were in the school environment, whether that be the ones who were witnesses to the incidents or the ones that are the actual students of the school. At times, we forget that they, too, were really negatively impacted by it, and we sometimes forget the large psychosocial impact that these things can have on them,” Williams argued.

“While they may be coping with the support of each other, I think it may be important that we get more guidance and counselling interventions within our schools,” she recommended.

Rajheim Nelson, region four vice-president of the NSSC, lamented that 2024 was marked by numerous incidents that affected students’ safety and well-being, which produced much fear and anxiety within students and made it challenging year.

“It was all just so malicious on the Jamaican student. Living in the Jamaican system is not only about ministry [of education], because there are limited things that the ministry can do to stop these things from happening. Everything has to come from a point within the school and homes. Administrators have to take a pointed step to where they not only dish out suspensions and detentions and expulsions. They have to sit down with the students and find out what is going on,” he suggested.

Nikhil Lalwani, national general secretary for the NSSC, agreed and addressed the impact these events had on the school population.

“The learning process is already as slow as it is, and now, because of threats like these in our so-called haven, we have been seeing some amount of challenges in actually getting the content to the students,” he said.

“We always boast about how schools are supposed to be havens for students and be a place where we can be ourselves and express ourselves, and then, of course, because of these issues, it causes safety concerns in the minds of the students. We’re always going to be defensive and come back to wondering, is this really a safe space? Is school really a safe place for us?” he said.