The Minister for Education, Heritage, and Arts Premila Kumar has called on parents to be more vigilant and assist teachers in the responsibility of ensuring that students’ whereabouts after school hours are well monitored and supervised.

This comes after reports were received by the ministry and police that students were being involved in drug related cases and fights after school hours.

Minister Kumar said there has been an increase in these cases in the past month and the ministry was concerned.

“We have seen an increase in drug cases, we have seen an increase in fights that goes on not only in the school environment but outside of school,” Ms Kumar said.

“What concerns me the most is parental responsibility,” she said.

“What happens in the school environment, the teachers are responsible for it and they will deal with the students but normally some of these things that I am mentioning are after school hours where we find our students, roaming around in the streets even at night.

“I plead with parents to look after their children, please guide them at this stage because if you don’t, things will go out of hand.”

Ms Kumar said Education was everyone’s responsibility.

“It is a shared responsibility and I can see that different partners are coming on board to ensure that education is delivered in the best possible manner.

“Parental responsibility is equally important.”

She also pleaded with parents to ensure that their responsibility in ensuring that the needs of their students were well looked after when in school.

“Sometimes students are in schools without breakfast and lunch and sometimes it is not because there is no food in the house, it is simply because the parents did not get up in the morning to prepare breakfast and lunch for their children.”

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