Less student indiscipline

Minister of Education Senator Hazel Manning’s statement that the absence of violence in schools to date for January this year has been due to initiatives by her Ministry, is only one part of the story. Clearly there are contributing factors such as the appeals that have been made by the wider community to parents to exercise greater control over their children and to assume a responsibility that is truly theirs. The indisclipine in schools in the last school year was intolerable and called for firm action on everyone’s part.

But even as we welcome news that indiscipline in schools has been cut in half, a more realistic assessment can be made as we approach Carnival when the behaviour of adults is mimicked by schoolchildren. It was the explosion of waywardness and/or outright violence at some of the pre-Carnival events last year which seems to have startled everyone, but the misbehavour was not new. Indeed children in our schools have been displaying anger in a violent way for several years. The Education Minister in detailing the initiatives revealed they had included the establishment of a Student Support Services Division within the Ministry; the introduction of psychosocial support for students, school social workers, the re-establishment of student councils; school safety officers and wirewall fencing.

All these would have contributed to an improvement in the behaviour of our children and there must not only be continuous follow-up action but the support of parents is a must if the strategies are to succeed on a long term basis. Parents must set positive examples for their children as well as monitor their behavioural patterns, their friends and/or acquaintances, their homework and what times they arrive home after school as well as make spot checks of their children’s school bags. In addition, they should become active members, where this is feasible, of the schools’ Parent-Teacher Associations and seek to liaise with their children’s teachers. It is both unrealistic and a clear abdication of duty for parents to believe that the responsibility for their children’s education is wholly that of teachers, and that they (the parents) do not have an input. A demonstrated unconcern by parents in their children’s progress at school, in the completing of homework tasks assigned to them and in their choice of persons with whom to associate will impact negatively on the teachers’ ability to interact successfully with them.

While a teacher can be regarded as a surrogate parent for the time a child is in school and/or under his/her charge and the teacher’s influence may extend way beyond school hours, nevertheless the teacher should not be seen as a 24-hour substitute parent. How many parents, for example, know about the sale of alcohol at events in which children are involved? Do they know if their children are mixing with people for whom substance abuse is a way of life? These are major contributory factors re student indiscipline/violence. There is a clear need to reverse the lingering situation in which all too many schoolchildren at the primary and secondary levels have not only a negative approach to education and their own upliftment, but as an example of the foregoing, mindlessly employ violence believing it a substitute for educational empowerment.