OCA, Education Minister To Investigate Newell High School Incident

Education Minister Fayval Williams has condemned, as unprofessional and inexcusable, the conduct of a teacher at the Newell High school in St. Elizabeth, who was captured on video, which has gone viral across social media, verbally assaulting, chasing and issuing death threats at a student.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Minister Williams says the behaviour lowers the professionalism of the teaching sector, which normalizes violence in the minds of students and does not provide the kind of role model that the society expects of our teachers.

The Board Chairman of the school has called an emergency meeting to deal with the conduct of the teacher. Meanwhile, the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) will be disseminating team members to the school on Friday to investigate the issue. 

Diahana Gordon Harrison, says the OCA has been in dialogue with the Ministry of Education in order to render the intervention which is needed. 

Harrisons says while she doesn’t believe the act, which is not the first of its kind will be embedded in schools, it is rather troubling. Harrison says special attention should also be paid to communities as the issues stem from here which are later portrayed in schools.

Harrison says the integrity of the teaching profession should be preserved while finding a solution to those who pose a risk to such integrity. Minister Williams noted in her release that this is not the first time that the teacher has acted in a similar threatening manner towards students. 

Watch the full report here: