The Ministry of Education reported that a pilot of the School Police plan is available in eight educational institutions in Durán. The Police considered the presence of agents in the other 29 campuses of Guayaquil to be urgent.
The fear of the Police is that the next step in rise in criminal violence in Guayaquil and Durán be a armed raid or shooting within an educational unit. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is concerned about a “harmonious environment” for students.
These are the basic differences in the implementation of a pilot of School Police Plan which refers to placing an armed uniformed officer inside high risk campuses in Durán and Guayaquil, in Zone 8.
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The idea of the police program was actually born after a armed raid there were no victims at the school in Nueva Prosperina, northwest of Guayaquil, in March 2023.
But Education informed PRIMICIAS that the plan will only be implemented as a pilot of eight educational institutions in Durán leaving 29 priority schools in Guayaquil.
Although the program was announced by Minister of Education, Maria Brown, on July 19, 2023, two months later there is still no start date. The Police estimated that the correction of new observations from the Ministry of Education may take more than one year.
“The observations made in the School Police plan prioritize the comprehensive protection and best interests of children and adolescents within educational institutions”
Vice Ministry of Education
All this while mothers from schools in the north and northwest of Guayaquil are asking for virtual classes because of the shooting around or in lack of teachers victims of threats and extortion.
In addition, Guayaquil is a municipality that Worked for two months to improve security and clean the environment of 29 campuses in the city, as part of the School Police Plan.
The Ministry of Education hopes to evaluate the results of the pilot in Durán to review the importance of the program and its application in other cantons.
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Objections to the School Police Plan
The Ministry of Education asked to include specific observations in the School Police plan, on September 1, 2023. He emphasized that the interest that prevails within the schools is the interest of the students.
Observations refer to subjecting the plan to educational regulations and “establish specific functions that the police officers within every educational institution,” Education reported.
Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Santamaría, director of security programs on the campuses of Zone 8 says that the Minister of Education, Maria Brown give him APPROVAL to the program during its launch in Durán, in July 2023.
But now the Ministry of the Interior and the Police have to build a new one management model.
“They want the Police to change its structure by creating a new component, such as community police which will take more than a year, if we have 40 servers trained at the start of the program URGENT said Santamaría.
There are 14 pages of observation that they received from Education, said the official, police chief of New Prosperina district the most violent in the city.
“This is an example of the irrationality of decisions made as a State. “A bureaucrat makes decisions at a table without knowing the reality on the ground.”
Roberto Santamaría, School Police plan
From Education, they maintain that schools are not the point of origin of the conflict but an environment affected by social conflict.
Furthermore, they demand that public forces contain, reduce, prevent, and reduce the criminal acts around the educational units and the district, because it covers the schools.
While the position of the Police is that of a sector plagued by criminal gangs Criminal groups have infiltrated school units.
Mothers clamored for intervention
on New schools in Prosperina Gangs seek to recruit students or promote the sale of drugs. Between January 1 and August 22, 2023, the police isolated 357 youths between 15 and 17 years old in Zone 8 (Guayaquil, Durán and Samborondon).
In addition, 39 of them are repeat offenders for crimes such as carrying weapons, sexual abuse, robbery, kidnapping, theft of cars or motorcycles. Currently, 22 have been assigned a place in a school.
“In Quito they believe that children will be stressed by a policeman at school, but they live with crime every day, in a very violent territory”
Roberto Santamaría, School Police plan
Mothers of the family unit of education of the Millennium Marietta de Veintimilla of the cooperative of Trinidad de Dios (Nueva Prosperina) met with the directors of the establishment on Monday, September 11, 2023.
They are worried absence of teachers threatened by criminal gangs on a campus with 2,000 students.
“Our children remain in the classrooms no teacher. They beat some teachers, threw them, and tried to kidnap others,” said a mother.
On October 26, 2022, a teacher at Marietta school in Veintimilla was injured by a 15-year-old minor who was threatened with a knife after arguing about a grade.
Since March, the Police have registered two students who were injured with the effects from Weapons outside the schools in the area.
Education implemented in 2015 the Safe School Plan and since 2022 it is coordinated by the Ministry of the Interior and the Police.
However the goal is limited: to provide surveillance on the entry and exit of students. It is implemented in 220 institutions in the country (59 in Zone 8) which are preceded by alerts and security risk indicators.
