KINGSTON, Jamaica — Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon has sought to dispel the notion that students seen in viral videos engaging in behaviour some consider borderline criminal, or other unrecorded acts of misconduct, are always from broken or underprivileged homes.

“Some of the young men who’ve been involved in some of the activities that have been in the news, they’re not from underprivileged families,” Morris Dixon said Wednesday at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House.

She said her ministry was constantly working to address the problem.

“There’s a lot of work that happens in our schools, especially in terms of guidance counselling and dealing with the psychosocial issues affecting our children.

“What I always try to point out is that our children are really products of the communities that they’re from, the homes that they’re from, and that we’re seeing in our schools a lot of the realities that we’re seeing in our communities. The schools are not distant from the communities within which they are delivering education services,” the minister explained.

She stressed that the same issues related to conflict resolution being experienced in the communities are popping up in schools because “it is learned behaviour”.

Morris Dixon said her ministry has had to put more emphasis on the psychosocial dimension, noting that, “This is a problem that is happening across our country and we have to deal with it and it is a general problem where we have accepted violence as the way to deal with conflicts.”

Recent violent incidents include the stabbing death of a young man, a student of Seaforth High, who was killed in Morant Bay on Monday after a dispute spilt into the town.

READ: Seaforth High student killed after schoolyard dispute escalates, three in custody

In addition, a 17-year-old student of Ocho Rios High School was charged with the murder of his schoolmate, 16-year-old Devonie Shearer, who was reportedly attacked at the institution on March 4.

Reports from the St Ann’s Bay police are that about 3:00 pm, the 17-year-old boy used a metal chair to hit Shearer on his head, causing a wound and rendering him unconscious. The injured boy was assisted to the hospital, where he died while undergoing treatment.

The accused teen was handed over to the police later the same day and was charged on March 5 in the presence of his parent, after eyewitness statements implicated him.

READ: Teen boy charged with murder of Ocho Rios High student

Another incident recently went viral, which involved students of Jamaica College violently beating a fellow student whom they accused of stealing items from them.

The boy was repeatedly struck in the face while being held by his collar, while another student struck him several times with a belt.

The boys are reportedly facing the disciplinary committee at the all-boy, Old Hope Road institution.

READ: JC board says student assaulted in viral video admitted to ‘taking’ items from schoolmates

— Lynford Simpson