PHILIPSBURG:--- While off island MP Jacobs heard of reports of violence against teachers during this week, and of possible actions by the teachers and unions.
The notion of increasing violence in schools is a direct result of rising violence in society. Several years ago teachers, social workers and school managers got together and worked out a discipline policy framework for Public schools, which remained untouched for years. During her tenure as Minister, MP Jacobs initiated the Education Conferences which highlighted these same challenges and the department of Education was charged with the task to present a discipline policy, taking the discipline framework into consideration, which would give national guidelines to deal with violence in schools.
In recent meetings of Parliament the current Minister of Education was asked about said policy and parliament was informed that it was still being worked on. MP Jacobs believes that teachers would want this to have a certain priority seeing the circumstances which can occur daily and will continue to push forward to see this policy finalized and executed.
The importance of parental responsibility in teaching discipline cannot be underscored more. Such a policy should also define parental liability.