Sex, fights among students in TT school
By Newsday Reporter Friday, December 29 2006
Students fighting and having sex are being featured as entertainment on the popular YouTube website which reaches a worldwide audience. The site invites people to post video footage of themselves.
People doing an online search under “Trini School” are shown several images. Some were innocuous, but others showed students.
The most disturbing image heading the list showed students in school uniforms having sexual intercourse in a classroom. It was titled “Road to Success” and submitted by an 18-year-old Trinidadian male calling himself “hoodrich233.”
The footage appeared to be filmed with a camera phone and shows a female student pulling up her skirt and sitting on the lap of a boy. It was submitted to the site three weeks ago and had been viewed 483 times. The clip lasts 38 seconds.
While the video was accessible last week, it has been blocked and removed for “terms of use violation.” The image of the two students is still listed.
There is also footage entitled “Hard Slap Pt 1” and “Hard Slap Pt 2” showing students hitting each other. These were submitted one month ago. The images were submitted under the “People” category.
“Trinidadian Girl Fight Part 2” running for almost four minutes showed two females arguing and cursing each other. Then one slapped the other and a fight ensued in front of a crowd. Attempts were made to pull the girls apart. One of the tags for the clip is “fight at Costaat.”
The footage was submitted for the comedy category and viewed 1,932 times up until yesterday. It was posted one month ago.
Contacted about the images at the site, an Education ministry official yesterday said in this season where tribute is paid to the people who watch over their flocks, parents and guardians need to be watchful since communication technology has opened up a new day for children of this generation.
He said parents should be mindful of what their children were doing with personal computers and cellphones. He said, “It is appalling to see secondary and tertiary education students using websites to display information and actions not in their own, or their school’s best interest.”
He said the Ministry has not banned cellphone use in schools and was consulting with interest groups to develop guidelines which would be implemented in the new year.
The vice-president of the National Parent Teachers’ Association, Carlyle Green, said the Association believes there should be a total ban on cellphones in schools.
He said the use of phones to disseminate negative images can create problems for children. “We are still of the opinion that in almost every school there is a land line and parents can contact their children and the same facility is available if teachers have to contact parents.” Green said youths had impressionable minds, and no one knew what “they in turn may want to do.”
The Education Division of the Tobago House of Assembly banned cellphones in Tobago schools last month after it was discovered that images of students involved in sexual acts were being disseminated. YouTube has been named among the year’s top entertainers by Entertainment weekly because of its cultural impact beyond cyberspace.
