Gadsby-Dolly: Ministry to ensure security in schools

EDUCATION Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said the ministry is working to ensure the correct strength of security officers go to schools when they are assigned.

She made the statement in response to a question from Couva North MP Ravi Ratiram during the standing finance committee in Parliament on October 17.

Ratiram said based on the draft estimates of recurrent expenditure, the actual spend for security services was $227,426,213 for 2023 but the revised estimate for 2024 was $186 million.

“Is any kind of increase in security services in our schools to curb the school violence situation being taken into consideration in budgeting for 2025? I raise this issue against the backdrop of school violence we are seeing happening and the recurring call from stakeholders for us to increase security for our students while they are in school and even while they are outside of the school perimeters.”

Gadsby-Dolly said the allocation for the year was based on the bills the ministry had in hand when the fiscal year ended.

“The actual billing for all the security services for one year is estimated at $255 million. What you see as the original, the actual spend is more than that. So what happens is at the end of the year we’ll pay all the bills we have, but there will be bills going into the other fiscal that apply to the last fiscal year.

“Based on what is available, the annual allocation is less than what would be billed for and, therefore, we will have to vire funds into this. What we will be working on is ensuring that the correct strength of officers go into the schools when they are assigned, because that is something we have been working on to ensure we have value for money.”

The minister made the statement on October 17, the same day gunshots were heard outside near the South East Port of Spain Secondary School leaving students traumatised and leading to the school being dismissed early. The school did not re-open on October 18, the same day almost 200 children from schools in Port of Spain and environs took part in a peace walk organised by the ministry.

Tabaquite MP asked why $265,000 had been allocated to the student support services programme in both 2024 and 2025, and how this money would be spent, given the recent discourse about whether the division was meeting the schools’ requirements in terms of student support services officers and guidance counsellors.

Gadsby-Dolly said the funds had been completely spent at the end of the fiscal year. She outlined some of the programmes it was used for.

“This is used for the programmes of the division including inclusive education, special education intervention, national parenting programme, annual career fair days, career development sessions, career manuals, special services such as diagnostic testing, speech and language assessment and therapy required for psychological testing, training for special education staff, training for guidance counsellors, psychologists, social workers and training in restorative practices.”

She said where possible, the officers use the services of other ministries and other divisions to obtain these services and trainings for free.

“They also very much shave some of the frills off some of their training programmes, so they may not have food, drink and refreshments to be able to run some of these programmes so they can meet the needs of some of these students.

“Of course they would love to have more than this but they fully use their allocations to run the programmes that they can, and they also benefit from the schools and the principals who assist them with their allocations as well.