The brutality of the bullying attack on a nine-year-old Mayaro schoolboy has once again brought national attention to a problem that has been simmering at schools across the country for decades.
More attention tends to be paid to cases at the secondary level where, due to the frequency with which fight videos are posted on social media networks, the extent of the problem is well known.
However, bullies are also at large in primary schoolyards and the Mayaro case is, unfortunately, not isolated.
While the specifics of this incident are now the focus of investigations by the police and the Ministry of Education, it brings to the forefront the larger issue of school violence which Education Minister Anthony Garcia assured us just a few months ago was under control.
It is difficult to measure progress on these matters since actual data is seldom available but anecdotal evidence suggests that the authorities have barely scratched the surface in addressing this problem although billions of dollars have been spent and various consultations and meetings have been convened by various political administrations going back several years.
In fact, just last year, at two national consultations held by the Education Ministry to discuss school-related issues, bullying and violence were on the table.
An even more significant fact is that close to three decades ago, after a high profile National Consultation on Violence and Indiscipline in Schools jointly hosted by then education minister Clive Pantin and then TTUTA president and now Education Minister Anthony Garcia, a White Paper on Education was produced.
That document has been the basis of planning and policies for successive education ministers since then.
The fact that bullying and other types of school violence are now more widespread suggests that whatever was implemented back then was not sustained, was not properly implemented, or was never reviewed and adapted to cater to the many social and technological changes that have occurred since then.
One strong indicator of deficiencies in current approaches to school violence is that bullying is not addressed directly in the National School Code of Conduct.
Instead, the document addresses fighting, assaults and threats—all components of bullying—and recommends a range of actions that can be taken by school authorities, including expulsion and involvement of law enforcement agencies.
To be fair, when the Code of Conduct was developed in 2009, the education and social landscape was radically different.
Social networks did not yet have much reach or influence and cyberbullying was not yet a thing.
However, these types of documents and policies need to be the focus of regular reviews and amendments to remain relevant and effective in a continually evolving education system.
Mr Garcia and the technocrats in his ministry should be open to more-enlightened approaches to discipline and school safety.
Last year, the last time problems of bullying and violence were getting national attention, the minister was promising measures like tightening security at high-risk schools and installation of scanners, CCTV and other electronic monitoring and electronic devices.
There was also talk about strengthening student involvement in conflict management and anger resolution.
But these bullying-prevention efforts, well intentioned though they may be, are simply not enough. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi spoke in Parliament yesterday about legislative approaches to the problem that put more focus on parental responsibility.
This law-and-order approach, characteristic of most of the anti-bullying programmes is not good enough. Other options need to be explored to equip students, educators and parents with the fundamental skills needed to regulate the powerful emotions that, when unregulated, can lead to psychologically and physically harmful behaviours such as bullying.