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November 06, 2009
Too many weapons in school
According to police statics made public by Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke police seized 15 guns and arrested 69 students for criminal offences at public schools throughout Jamaica during 2007/08 academic year.
Statistics for the present academic year were not immediately available, but stabbing and other violent incidents involving students continue to affect public schools. Among the most recent incidents was last month's fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old Grade 11 Fercourt High School student by a boy who attends another school in St Ann.
"Children live in communities where lawlessness abound," said Clarke. "Children pattern adult behaviour, and so when we are dealing with violence in schools we also have to treat with domestic violence. The home is the first school for a child and so we have to treat with community violence,” she was quoted as saying in the Observer.
What’s really happening in our schools. Are we sending our children into war zones instead of learning institutions? It makes a parent want to cocoon their child and not send them out into the big bad world.