The lead story in Monday's STAR was quite disturbing and pointed to the need for immediate intervention in our schools.

According to the story, students from some communities have been practising violence experienced in their area, at school. While this is nothing new, the story provided a different element noting that students were also aligning themselves with political parties.

Apart from the fact that these children are not even old enough to vote, it is clear that kind of tribal politics that some members of the society have been trying to stamp out, is being encouraged to continue with these children.

First, this sort of turf-war thing should not even be allowed to continue as it only leads to the continuation of the years of conflict taking place in several of these communities.

Children should not be learning to intimidate people who do not support their political party. Children should not be learning about defending turfs and enforcing this at school.

The cycle of violence, which is common place in the communities where the students are from, needs to be broken urgently. They need to be guided and taught that violence in any form is unacceptable and should not be practised at all.

If this is not being taught at home then community leaders, teachers, church leaders and all adults who have influence over these young minds need to tell them this and make them understand what is wrong.

We cannot, as a society, allow this to continue because it is a threat to governance and all hopes of a peaceful society.