Minister of Education Addresses Violence in Belize City High Schools

Francis Fonseca

Minster Fonseca also responded to concerns about the safety of students attending high school in Belize City, following recent reports of violent altercations in a couple of schools where the free education program has been rolled out. There have been suggestions that police officers should be stationed inside these troubled compounds. We asked Minister Fonseca for his thoughts.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“We do work closely with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the police department. There are, in some schools, there are challenges, you know and obviously we need to work more closely with the police, but I certainly don’t want to see schools, you know, become where we have on campus heavy police guard. That should not be the case. So we have to find, I think, creative ways of ensuring that schools are secure, that our students and teachers are safe when they’re at school. We have to do that. So I think more likely it’s, it means that we’ll have to strengthen or truancy department, the school wardens system will have to be updated, upgraded, but we will continue to work with the police department because safety and security is a critical issue.  I know we’ve had a few incidents, recently of violence in the schools. So, you know, in cases where that take place then we call in the police. But I certainly, as I said, I don’t want to go in the direction of us having police presence, overwhelming police presence on any school campus.”