Amid the growing level of indiscipline and violence in Jamaican learning institutions, a school activist yesterday called for boot camps to be installed nationally for delinquent students.

Lawman Lynch, safe schools ambassador in the Ministry of National Security, argued that secondary students should be actively involved in a uniformed group or a service club.

Failure to adhere to disciplinary procedures in these uniformed groups or service clubs, Lynch said, should result in delinquents being enrolled in boot camp.

Time for action

"We cannot be soft in our approach to crime and violence at this time, especially in our educational institutions. We simply cannot sit by and fathom excuses for these few ruthless students," said Lynch, who is also president of the Kingston and St Andrew Action Forum Youth Organisation.

Lynch continued: "What is factual is that the few are the main perpetrators; hence, let's deal with them - mandatory uniformed group enrolment or boot camp."

He told The Gleaner yesterday that the boot-camp programme would be similar to a military school, where students abide by the rules of the institution. He noted that while these delinquent students would be supervised by military personnel, teachers would be on board to continue the learning process.

Lynch noted that students' return to the formal school system would be contingent on significant behavioural improvement.

Truant label

But Sylvester Anderson, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica, said placing students in boot camps would tag them as truants.

"It can only hurt them if you take them and put them in that institution, they will be considered as truants," said Anderson.

He added: "I agree that they need to be separated from the regular students, but not in the context of a boot camp," the president told The Gleaner yesterday.

Meanwhile, Andrew Holness, minister of education, told The Gleaner yesterday that boot camps should be restricted to students who broke the law.

"The Ministry of Education considers boot camp to be a law-enforcement solution and we would reserve that for students who have broken the law and are no longer in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education," said Holness.

Holness said the ministry is to develop an alternate student intervention programme (ASIP) for students who pose a real threat to the safety and security of the learning environment.

Intensive intervention

ASIP, he said, would be custodial in nature, with intensive intervention from specialists in the areas of psychology, behaviour- management counselling and law enforcement.

Holness also said the Ministry of Education was close to rolling out a behaviour-management strategy for secondary schools.

Part of that strategy, he said, would be bolstered by support from the Programme for Alter-native Student Support, which will provide specialised personnel and resources to assist schools in dealing with students who are beyond its resources.

On the matter of compulsory uniformed groups, Holness said while the ministry viewed extra-curricular activities as a key strategy in managing behaviour, it was averse to making such participation mandatory.