RECENT STATEMENTS on school violence made by the Minister of Education would seem to deflect responsibility for treating with the problem in a decisive manner. From any perspective, the fact that approximately ten per cent of the affected population are being referred to the Student Support Services Division (SSSD) is empirical evidence that there is a serious dysfunction in our school system.
Schools mirror the wider society. Something has gone awry among us as a society in terms of our socialisation systems and structures. As moral agents that ought to provide social satisfaction, schools are now compelled to make the necessary adjustments in their modus operandi to do their part in addressing this dysfunction. By downplaying the gravity and extent of the problem avoids effective diagnosis and solution.
The home is the first education institution, a fact to which the minister correctly alludes. What is being done to address this deficiency? Are parents going to be held more accountable for their children's deviant behaviour?
In the past many ideas have been touted such as the establishment of homework centres. These have never materialised. Other interventions such as the vacation revision programme for form one students, conceptualised by the ministry in 2022, also never achieved its goals given the poor level of participation by students.
In the interim, schools are faced with unprecedented levels of deviance, without commensurate resources and support systems. School administrators would readily attest to the fact that the SSSD is overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of students needing interventions.
While the minister cited statistics to support her assertion, the reality is that students are only referred to the SSSD or suspended after several levels of interventions have been unsuccessfully attempted.
From unco-operative parents to those that deny their children's acts of indiscipline and others that have completely abandoned their parental responsibility, teachers and school officials are challenged to get one in every ten children currently enrolled in the school system to follow basic school rules.
The existing legal framework that govern schools also places severe restrictions on the options available to school officials to get students to conform to standard rules of social engagement.
Counselling a child at school to reform offending behaviours is being countenanced by parents. School officials have no recourse in a society that has been weaned by politicians on rights/entitlements devoid of responsibility.
Unfortunately, some children's only purpose for attending school is the receipt of meals and social welfare. Parents of these children make little or no effort to ensure that their children are in a position to take advantage of the schooling opportunity, proudly advancing poverty as their justification. In their eyes, schools represent no hope for a better life or a way out of economic and social hardship.
Unfortun
