The recent violent clashes among students on two high school campuses in New Providence have reignited calls for a return to the policy of having police stationed on the grounds of public high schools, as was the case prior to the current Free National Movement government returning to power in May of 2002.

We fully supported the change of policy by the FNM government when it was announced, and still do, for the very same reasons that we noted back then, which includes our conviction that uniformed police presence on school campuses creates an atmosphere that is not conducive to leaning.

What's more, as the government noted when it changed the policy, the majority of the incidents involving fights among students occur after school and not on school grounds. Rightly so, to address this problem, police presence was increased near the schools while students were en route home.

Another factor that supports the decision taken by the government is that two or three police stationed on the campus of each school could hardly have prevented the recent outburst of violence that took place at those schools. There is no question that this is a very serious problem that cannot be allowed to continue unaddressed. In an open letter to Minister of Education, Youth Sports and Culture Carl Bethel - that we ran as a "Guest Commentary" on Wednesday of this week - Robert "Bob" Hall offered what he called a "permanent, no-nonsense solution" to the escalation in school violence.

What he actually proposed were six suggestions, one or two of which on the surface may appear to be extremely drastic, but these are drastic times that require drastic solutions to what is obviously a drastic problem. For starters, Hall suggests that the current juvenile laws be examined to ensure that the court that deals with juvenile offenders "has the authority to commit juveniles who are disruptive and unruly on campuses and in the school system, including private schools, to a period of detention in a reform institution."

He also proposes that the current "adult laws" be examined "to ensure that authority exists in the justice system to penalize parents of juveniles who have been convicted of school breaches. He suggests that the adult penalty should take the form of community service for the same period for which their child is serving time in the reform institution. He also recommends that a three-member committee comprised of the principal, deputy principal and the relevant class teacher be established in the schools to "make the initial judgment on putting a student before the juvenile court."

Hall further advocates that the male reform institution could take the form of a boot camp supervised by a marine commander. Females found in breach of school laws, he said, should be placed in the existing female reform schools in New Providence. Children placed in a reform institution should be afforded the basic school subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic and exposed to a fair amount of military training, including the preparation of camp meals and keeping the camp clean. Hall recommends that a temporary accommodation for the boot camp should be established at the marine base in New Providence, until a permanent camp can be established, possibly in Andros.

The boot camp idea is already in practice in a small way through the YEAST Program operated in North Andros, which last week turned out its most recent graduates. Using Hall's proposal, that camp could be extended to include more troubled students.

Certainly, all of his other suggestions are worth giving serious consideration to as a means of addressing the escalating violence in our schools.