Antigua schools to get metal detectors

1. Good idea,and students must be on curfew by 6 pm a force to be off the street n in their parents house.

2. Aren’t metal-detecting wands far more economical and just as effective as the bigger, significantly more expensive doorway devices?
   Again, just asking …

3. How would this make sense when there are so many ways other than the front gate to get into the school yard and elven more get to the classrooms without being detected.

4. Parents need to understand how much they are failing their children. It’s easy to blame the police for not doing their job, or the government, but when you as a parent keeps failing your child then that’s where these problems start. Multiple poor people having children. Children having Children. Fathers neglecting Children. Mothers keep neglecting children. We can twist it a hundred ways. This all begins from home and because you send your already neglected child to a school with similar children, the problem is projected and manifested. The government should put a cap on people who want to have children with a salary cap to avoid children being born in a system that would lead to crime. Mind you, lots of good children come from broken homes but this current generation and batch is tormenting the country.

   • @ 5 cents. Don’t be ridiculous. Human beings have a natural right to reproduce anywhere on earth like all of God’s other creatures. Any solution that requires governments to infringe excessively on people’s natural God-given rights is a BAD solution. No government should ever be in the business of trying to dictate who should and shouldn’t have children. That’s impossible to police anyway and would only lead to horrific human rights violations. Children will always be born, whether good or bad. If some children in this country are turning out bad these days, it is this current society’s fault, including yours because I’m sure you are doing nothing at all to make the county more child friendly. Lots of poor kids being born and have been born in this country and all over the world in many different types of communities and many turn out just fine and communities were/are peaceful. If we as a community can’t get our children to generally turn out well these days, we are doing something wrong all together.

5. This government is such a joke.

6. The devastating realities of school violence demands innovative and effective solutions. Today’s school situation is indicative of the changing times in which we are living. Schools should be a place of learning and growth. Tragically the trend over the past years seem to leave policy makers with no choice but to implement measures of making both teachers and students safe and well as easing parents fear and anxiety.
   Whilst everyone would agree that it’s a step in the right direction, i have a few concerns:
   1. The Ministry’s ability to properly maintain the metal detectors and keep them working.
   2. Perimeter security. The vast majority of our schools require proper enhanced physical barriers like fencing and where they currently exist, they are porous.
   3. Better visitor management: all visitors must be logged and their ID retained once they are on the school property
   4: Metal detections can also lead to a false sense of security believing that everything is good and safe.

   Our biggest and greatest problems with children in schools today are parents. Nothing we do will make the school environment full proof until parents begin to play a more active and effective role in the lives of their children.

   We can fix everything else but if the homes remain the same we are really up sh#t street.

7. Have they installed the AC in the schools? During covid,Melford Nicholas said they would be creating,” hot spots,” for underprivaledge students to have internet access: never happened. Max Hurst spoke of tablets with built in wifi for the youngsters: will never happen. It took industrial action by teachers to get schools fenced; you should see the shoddy,incomplete,half-assed work. Metal dectors? Will not happen.
   Gaston Browne and his hoodlums are a joke.

8. Please remember to properly fence all schools too, so that students only point of entry would be through the main gate.

9. Hope not, the limited resources would be better spent in essential school equipment that uplight the school experience of our students and create an environment more conducive for learning. Most schools don’t have enough classrooms, chairs, desks, hygiene supplies for students, fans, AC units, lab equipment and reliable wifi. Not to mention adequate sporting facilities. Let’s look about the needs and welfare of our students instead of treating them like criminals…

   • @Belle. Totally agree. We can never find the money to create comfortable, well resourced child-friendly schools and neighbourhoods that create happier, less violent children, but we can suddenly come up with money to spend on turning schools into mini prisons. Why?

10. In Neighbourhoods:
    Green spaces to play.
    Healthy food snack options. (Sell smoothies, vege quiches etc.)
    Neighborhood activities e.g. Christmas block party (NO adult music fete!)
    Sports clubs.
    Tutoring centers.
    Skills training.
    Employment centres.
    In Schools:
    Enough desks, chairs.
    Enough class/subject equipment.
    Basic Life Skills training.
    Useful projects.
    Career information.
    In Town:
    Child-friendly activities, affordable to locals.
    Arcades.
    Bowling alleys.
    Family Diners like the nook.
    Skating rinks.
    Affordable mini golf.
    Family friendly karaoke restaurants.
    NO adult-like fetes with adult music.
    Family-friendly Plays.
    Teen appropriate Concerts.
    In the country:
    Book clubs
    Outdoor clubs
    In the media:
    Caribbean history.
    Caribbean natural features.
    Caribbean traditional cooking kids show.
    Child/Teen appropriate Caribbean music.
    Child-friendly Caribbean media apps

    Do ANY adults in this country start businesses catering to children’s entertainment? Or do people just expect children to always be in books? go from school to after class to home to summer school classes?
    Parents should do it? Where can a parent take their child in this country besides the beach once in a blue moon?
    Every business in this country focuses on tourists, charging exorbitant prices, trying to get the white man’s dollar.
    NO ONE invests in the local community’s needs, least of all the children. Yet people expect that happy well-behaved children will magically be produced…

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