has been expelled since the Progressive Labour Party came into power, Education Minister Senator Milton Scott has revealed.

Following claims in The Royal Gazette yesterday by Government backbencher Derrick Burgess that law and order needed to be returned to the classroom, Sen. Scott said there were a number of ways to tackle bad behaviour -- but sending students home was not always the best way.

He said Government had a policy that students should not be thrown out of their school.

In just two years, there has been a drastic reduction in the numbers of pupils being suspended.

There are about 6,000 children at public schools on the Island.

In the school year 1998 to 1999, there were 924 suspensions. For the year 1999 to 2000, there were 675 suspensions.

However, from September to December last year Government's policy of keeping students in school really began to kick in, with the Education Ministry reporting just 88 suspensions for the quarter.

Instead, principals have been asked to come up with alternative ideas and pass them on to the Ministry. One suggested alternative is to put troublesome students in isolation on the school site, where they can continue to study.

He said: "There have been no expulsions under this Government and our policy is that students should not be expelled.

"There are a number of other ways of addressing students' needs and difficulties.

Scott defends discipline policy "Options might include adjusting a student's schedule or modifying their instruction, other disciplinary measures include, counselling, parent conferences, psychiatric assessment, school transfer or referral to outside agencies.

"Most importantly, we must try to understand what is causing the problem and try to solve it.'' For the same reason, he said principals were discouraged from imposing suspensions as a disciplinary measure.

He said if a student is not in school, the Government is not providing him or her with an education.

But he said he understood there were times when children needed to be removed from certain classes.

"If a student is being threatening and damaging property, and the school has done what it can to deal with the student, they should call the Police and have the student removed from the property,'' he said.

A school principal, who did not wish to be named, said, to a degree, she supported efforts to reduce the number of suspensions.

She said suspensions did correct habitual bad behaviour. Often students needed professional help or more individual assistance, she claimed, in order to correct the problem.

And she said with the proper help, such as Government's Cadet programme, which is currently under review and provides schooling for students with behavioural problems, they could correct their problems and then return to mainstream education.

The principal said: "I think suspension, however, is a good cooling off period and can be used for allowing students to cool off and think about what they did.'' "There are also educational therapists in school now, which means another alternative and form of help, so I think the need is not there like it used to be.'' However, Government's policy came under fire from Shadow Education Minister Tim Smith. He said some students needed to be expelled to protect the majority of students who wished to learn.

He said: "Public education must have a discipline code and this code must include suspension and expulsion. If it is rarely or never invoked, then it makes a mockery of the code.