PALS: Recent tragedies show conflict resolution needed in Jamaica’s classrooms

The Board and members of Peace and Love in Society (PALS) Jamaica is mourning the death of 13-year-old Kland Doyle, a Seaforth High School student fatally stabbed last week following a long-standing dispute with a schoolmate that families on both sides say could have been resolved.

“We are equally troubled by the viral footage of a violent assault at Jamaica College,” stated PALS, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting peaceful conflict resolution and respectful communication in schools and communities across Jamaica.

“Taken together, these incidents paint an urgent and undeniable picture: Jamaica’s schools are in crisis, and punishment alone will not save our children.

“What is most heartbreaking about the Seaforth High tragedy is that those closest to it saw it coming. Both families sought help. Police were involved. Yet, without structured, sustained mediation – for the boys and their parents – a simmering conflict became a fatal one.”

PALS said such disputes reflect the gap that conflict resolution training is designed to fill.

INTERVENTION REQUIRED

“These are not random acts of senseless violence. They are the predictable outcome of young people who have never been taught how to manage conflict, and families who have no neutral space to resolve it,” said PALS Chairman Christopher Barnes. “Jamaica cannot continue to respond to these tragedies after the fact. We must intervene long before a dispute becomes a headline.”

PALS’ conflict resolution curriculum – originally developed for grades 1 through 6 and approved by the Ministry of Education – is built on this principle: intervene early, equip children with the language and tools to resolve conflict peacefully, and build that capacity in their parents and teachers, too.

PALS said that, for more than three decades, its behaviour modification programmes, peace ambassadors peer mediation model, and parenting workshops have demonstrated measurable results confirming their effectiveness.

“Yet these programmes remain chronically underfunded. The integration of conflict resolution into Jamaica’s national curriculum –recommended by PALS, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, and education stakeholders – remains unrealised,” the non-profit organisation stated, as it called for the education ministry to embed structured conflict resolution into the national curriculum. This, it is said, should begin at primary-school level as a matter of urgency.

“We call on the private sector to help fund its expansion now – before the next tragedy.

“Our children are telling us they need help. We must respond with more than punishment.”