TTUTA president: Our students are in prison

Three days after a shooting incident outside the St Francois Girls' College in Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) president Martin Lum Kin says schools and places of worship are no longer safe from the wrath of criminals, and he reckons the aforementioned institution bears resemblance to a prison and not a place of learning.

The TTUTA president was speaking to reporters at St Francois Girls' College on the morning of September 30, where members of the TTPS' victim and witness and support unit were scheduled to visit the school and offer counselling to students and staff after the traumatic incident a few days earlier.

Responding to reports of a shooting incident around 11 am on September 27, police swooped in on Serraneau Road, Belmont to flush out two suspects from a drain opposite the school. One suspect was apprehended by the police and taken into custody, while the other was reportedly killed in a shootout with the officers.

The suspects, who were hiding in the drain, were believed to be responsible for shooting two men – Curtis Jones and Pafawa Roberts – on Serraneau Road. Roberts and Jones were taken to hospital.

Accompanied by TTUTA treasurer Cuthbert Joseph, Lum Kin pleaded for more to be done to protect the students at St Francois and other schools within the district.

"We're here to lend any support our members would require and to find out what the Ministry of Education is putting in place in order to have the occupants of this compound feel safe and secure and to get any assistance in relation to any sort of counselling that will need to take place," Lum Kin said. "It's quite unfortunate that the school would have experienced such an event. But, we're mindful of the times we're going through and the area in which we are located as well.

"If one did not know this was a school, one may think it was a prison or a place of rehabilitation for criminals and so," Lum Kin said, alluding to the high walls and fences on the St Francois perimeter. "And so, the majority of our schools are becoming fast like this so they resemble prisons instead of education systems, and this is a poor reflection of our society."

He said students cannot be expected to stay focused and be on top of their grades when they have to be worried about their safety and that of their peers on a consistent basis.

"In the past, schools and places of worship were revered and there was an unwritten code which said that these places should not be touched," he said. "But more and more, we're seeing that unwritten code is being broken, and that the occupants of the institution where learning takes place, where minds are moulded and the future generation is taught, are being breached. And the criminals have no sense of reverence and respect for these institutions.

"The nation cannot be educated once we have those levels of crime and the conditions by which it is taking place at this time."

The shooting incident outside the St Francois compound isn't an isolated circumstance in recent times, as on the morning of September 25, two men were killed and a four-year-old boy was among the people injured when gunmen opened fire outside of Roxann's Learning and Childhood Centre at Johnny Basement, Malick.

Lum Kin said more safety measures need to be implemented in and around schools, and he called for more static and vehicular police patrols in the vicinity of the St Francois school, to go along with the installation of CCTV cameras on the compound.

He commended the police for their "level of response and the professionalism" they showed to preserve lives of those at the school on that day.

"In terms of the traumatic experience, I could very well understand what the students and the staff were placed under that day. To hear gunshots so close to your (school) compound and not knowing what could take place, will be a traumatic experience," Lum Kin said, recalling a November 2022 shootout which took place in close proximity to Rose Hill RC Primary School on Le Coulle Street, Laventille Road.

"These are the realities the students and our members face sometimes on a daily or a monthly basis. It's quite worrying to us that our society has reached this."

As far as TTUTA's support to St Francois Girls' College goes, Lum Kin said, "we cannot dictate what would take place in society, but at least we can make representation to the authorities to have the necessary security and then, if there are instances, the necessary counselling and support for the people who are so affected."

(With reporting by Enrique Rupert).