KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — Beginning in May, the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information will be training more teachers in restorative justice practices, in keeping with strategies to improve safety and security in schools.

This is according to Director of Safety and Security in Schools, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Coleridge Minto, who informed that the targeted 500 teachers will be trained in batches of 100 over the next six to 12 months.

“Restorative justice is really an alternative and looking at another method of treating with when you have conflicts in the schools, and so the objective of the ministry is to ensure that we train at least 500 persons in the next couple of months,” he said.

He told JIS News that the initiative, which has already seen 200 primary and high-school teachers being trained, is in partnership with the Ministry of Justice.

“In the long-term, over the next three to five years, there should be at least three or four persons trained in every school in restorative justice practices, which is a new methodology we are using,” he said.

He noted that while the focus will be on the 171 high schools, training will also be extended to primary and junior-high institutions.

Part funding for the exercise will be provided under the US$3-million Safe Schools Project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).