You know, Minister of Education Andrew Holness has impressed me since he assumed his role as minister. He is a bright fellow, which is more than I can say for many of this country's ministers of government - green or orange.

He has taken decisions that I believe will benefit the educational system and subsequently our children. But, even the best of us makes the occasional blunder.

This minister's idea about training teachers to become special constables as a means of curbing crime in high school is *lo**y ridiculous. It is almost as insane as Audley Shaw's suggestion that Jamaica can rise and shine in the shadow of the looming recession in the US economy. Well, not quite that bad but still pretty stupid.

Teachers are already overburdened and underpaid to boot, being educators, parents, counsellors, and generally miracle workers. Now the minister wants them to become cops too? I appreciate that many of our kids are becoming increasingly violent and something needs to be done to restrain these junior criminals, but the answer is not turning teachers into blue-seam cops.

As I write this, I am visualising these select teachers walking into a classroom with MP5s slung over their shoulders, and clad in bullet-proof vests with the word 'police' printed across the chest. At the first sign of trouble; "Boy, sit down before I am forced to unleash my weapon!"

Before long, we'd start getting reports like "A student of (insert school here) was shot dead by a teacher yesterday during a shoot-out in a third-form classroom. Reports said that the teacher approached the classroom where boys were seen acting suspiciously. The teacher confronted the students who opened fire and ran off in different directions. The teacher returned the fire and the wounded boy was eventually discovered bleeding under a desk. He was taken to the school nursing bay where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The police are investigating."

Parent's job

Okay, so that's a bit extreme but, really, teachers have no place being police. The minister would be better served by helping to draft legislation that would make parents accountable for the actions of their children. Whenever a child commits a violent act, he/she and the parents are brought before a tribunal and if found guilty, the child is suspended and the parents fined heavily. If they can't pay the fine, then they are jailed and the child becomes a ward of the state until the sentence is served.

See how long it would take for parents to fall in line then? Everybody understands what clock is striking when they have to pay money. Yes, it sounds desperate but so does turning teachers into policemen and women. Because if that has become the case, why then doesn't the Government just set up police stations within each school?

We have long identified that poor parenting is at the root of the problems concerning student violence. As such, we need to take the pressure off the teachers and start putting it where it belongs, on the parents.

For too long too many kids have been allowed to bring unplanned-for children into this world. There are no consequences facing these young girls and the boys, taxi/bus drivers and dirty old men that impregnate them. In a few years, all these maladjusted kids are unleashed on teachers, who are then expected not only to teach them but 'mother' them as well.

It makes no sense. We cannot win the battle that way. We have to get to these kids before they get to school or better yet before they start being specks in their mothers' eyes.