Students suspended for not bringing cockroaches to school

Some 20 students from the Barrouallie Secondary School were reportedly suspended from school on Tuesday for two days for not bringing cockroaches to school. According to the students, they were told that they should go on a “cockroach hunt.”{{more}}

Searchlight spoke with the suspended fourth form students who were on the compound of the Ministry of Education on Tuesday trying to speak with a ministry official. They said that they believed that their punishment for not bringing cockroaches was ‘harsh’.

The students said that they had been told a week earlier by their Integrated Science teacher that they had to bring cockroaches “dead or alive” to class as part of their class project, but only about five persons actually brought roaches.

A source close to the school however told Searchlight that the students had been given over two weeks to bring the cockroach specimens to their Integrated Science class. According to the source, the deadline had been extended three times, and when the students still turned up to class on Tuesday without the specimens, disciplinary action was taken. Searchlight understands that 16 students, not five, complied and brought cockroaches to school to do their drawings.

One of the suspended students, said her quest to find roaches was unsuccessful, “We made an effort to look; I know I looked all about and I didn’t find any cockroach. I even went to somebody’s house and asked them and they said that it was very disrespectful to come by their place to ask for a cockroach because they didn’t have any cockroaches at their home.”

The students told Searchlight that it was “very hurtful” to be suspended and most claimed that they had never had to leave a class before, much more be suspended from school for two days.

The student lamented, “I am a person who doesn’t miss school and I need my education because we have science SBA’s to do. It makes us feel really bad!”