In recent years incidents of school-related violence ranging from physical attacks on teachers by students, parent/teacher confrontations and open brawls among weapon-wielding children have challenged the authorities to take urgent measures to arrest a growing culture of deviant behaviour in our schools. School-related violence may not yet have reached the stage of the terrifying rampages by gun-toting students that have taken place in the North American school system. However, the recent discovery of a gun among the belongings of a local schoolboy point to what some teachers say may well be a worrying step in that direction.
Serious violence in schools is random, can be savage and intense and is usually associated with working class communities. The most recent cases, at Lodge Community High School, saw three students stabbed in separate incidents while prior outbreaks of violence have been recorded at schools in Region 10 and in Georgetown. Other cases of serious school-related violence are believed not to have come to public attention. What is perhaps even more disturbing than the increasing trend of incidents of violence among the nation’s schoolchildren is the fact that the authorities, specifically the Ministry of Education, appears nowhere near to coming to grips with the problem.
While education officials in other parts of the region continue to pronounce openly on violence in schools, officially, the Ministry of Education maintains a stony silence on the issue. Just over a year ago acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education in the Bahamas Elma Garraway declared at a forum on violence in schools organized by the Organization of American States and UNESCO that “in the Bahamas and in the entire Caribbean school violence is an emerging source of educational and social concern. In recent times the use of violence on the part of and against many of our students, particularly in the secondary school level has surfaced as a source of increasing concern among education professionals, government officials, parents and the general public.” Just a few days ago the Guyana Review learnt that the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education here had refused to give the ‘green light’ to an interview with an official of the Ministry on the subject of violence in schools.
Just recently, this newspaper was informed that the Permanent Secretary’s fear of possible official reprimand precludes those closest to the problem – the teachers responsible for the maintenance of good order in schools – from discussing the problem openly, though a senior Ministry of Education official serving within the regional administration told the Guyana Review that if there is any serious plan to respond to this particular problem it has to be “a closely guarded secret.”
You get a sense that the seeming leaden-footedness of the authorities derives from a combination of perplexity over the phenomenon of violence in schools and a genuine fear on the part of teachers that attempts to assert their authority could place them at risk. More than that concern among officials that public discourse on the subject of school-related violence may not meet with official approval has meant that comments on the subject have been made only on condition of anonymity. “The fact that the Ministry of Education appears not to approve of us discussing the idea in public means that there is not sufficient public awareness of the dangers posed by violence in schools,” a Georgetown-based senior secondary school teacher says.
The senior Education Ministry official with whom we spoke agrees that the problem is growing worse because ‘the system’ does not allow for frank and open discussion on the issue of violence in schools and among schoolchildren and exactly how the problem should be tackled. “Whenever there is an incident we respond as best we think we can. There does not appear to be any recognition of a trend here, otherwise we would begin to mount a far more serious response,” the official told the Guyana Review.
In the wake of the recent spate of incidents at the local secondary school this newspaper learnt that the functionary currently serving as Schools Welfare Coordinator was not “authorized” to speak publicly on the issue, a circumstance that applies to comments to the media by all but a few well-placed Public Service functionaries. In response to the recent incidents of bloodletting among school children Education Minister Sheik Baksh announced that the Ministry would be placing Guidance Counselors in some schools where violence is known to have occurred.
“That is not a suitable response! This is much bigger than a few Counselors,” trumpets city-based education official. “Tackling this monster has to go beyond putting Counselors in schools. Lives are at stake here, the lives of students and the lives of teachers. It is only a matter of time before we have to deal with murder.” Two other experienced teachers with whom The Guyana Review spoke agree that official responses to the problem need, first, to try to probe the reasons why what is happening is happening if workable solutions are to be applied.
Another Georgetown secondary teacher believes that the problem of school-related violence cannot be separated from changing trends in the wider society. “What has happened is that the education system has not kept pace with those changing trends. We appear to feel that creating an education system is about building schools and putting teachers and children together in those schools. Hopefully, we are learning from what is happening in our schools that it is the learning environment that is really important. The fact is that the existing system for the maintenance of good order in schools has fallen well behind the disciplinary challenges facing the system.”
Do teachers really care? “Of course we care,” the Secondary School teacher responded. “We care because we are professionals. We care because we understand our obligation to those children. You really should be putting that question to the officials in the Ministry. Frankly, we sometimes wonder whether they care. What rules or guidelines do we have for maintaining good order in schools?”
What currently obtains is a 26-page “Manual of Guidelines For The Maintenance of Order and Discipline In Schools” promulgated in April 2002 which asserts “the right of the school to maintain order and discipline” and declares that “it is the responsibility of administrative and non-administrative staff to ensure that its climate is one in which order and discipline prevail.” Several teachers are unaware of the very existence of the manual and one East Coast Demerara Head Teacher who says he has a copy dismisses it as “words, mere words on paper.” He says that there are ‘complications” in the system that do not allow the schools to discipline children effectively. “First, there is the issue of parent retaliation. These are not what one would describe as the old days. Strong disciplinary action against deviant behavior sometimes bring angry, disapproving parents into the picture. Somke of those interventions are aggressive. I don’t mind telling you that in my experience teachers are afraid of confrontations with parents. We also have a problem with official Ministry response. I know of cases where teachers have been in hot water because parents have protested to higher authority after children have been disciplined. Some teachers believe that despite the Manual you might be putting your career in danger if you apply the proper disciplinary measures.”
A retired Ministry of Education Official who is still engaged in part-time teaching agrees. “The culture of discipline in schools has changed considerably over the past twenty or so years. There used to be a time when parents regarded tough discipline as an indication that teachers were concerned about their children’s welfare. That has changed. There are cases today in which some children are untouchable because they use the reputations of their parents to intimidate the teachers. That kind of problem cannot be solved within the school system. The society has to address that problem. I also agree that the schools do not always have the backing of the Ministry when disciplinary measures are taken.”
Guidelines for discipline outlined in the Manual are sufficiently generalized as to render them meaningless. “The school,” the Manual says, “has the right to institute measures or take appropriate action to ensure that order and discipline are not compromised by learners, be it within or outside the school. “
One teacher who told The Guyana Review that he has been criticized for punishing delinquent children says that the position of the Ministry of Education sometimes makes ‘a mockery” of those guidelines. “The position of the Ministry of Education on corporal punishment is unclear and inconsistent. If you look at the rules you will also find that our ability to take effective disciplinary action depends on what the Manual describes as ‘the climate of the school.’ I am not entirely certain what that means but I imagine that if you work in a school where there is a history of violent behavior by children and their parents you need to be cautious about applying disciplinary measures. That places those of us who administer schools in a pretty difficult position.” The teacher also points out that while the disciplinary Manual makes provision for expelled children to be placed in “Special Schools” such special schools “properly equipped to deal with those problem children, are non-existent.”
Under the guidelines for discipline that apply in schools the right of the school “to enforce order and discipline” also applies “when the learner retaliates or threatens to retaliate against any member of the school staff.” This too is the subject of consternation and puzzlement among teachers and Teaching administrators. “At the stage where retaliation against a teacher takes place the situation has become far too confrontational for the school to take any remedial action. Sometimes all we can do is to protect ourselves by calling in the police,” a Head Teacher says.
Dependence on rules as a mechanism for the maintenance of order and discipline ignores “the real issues” associated with school violence and other forms of delinquency according to the Georgetown-based Ministry of Education official. “Very often the violence has nothing to do with normal in-school transgressions. Children bring their dispositions from home and from the society at large and we must first seek to determine the origins their disposition. By talking about disciplinary codes and about applying rules without first understanding where the violence is coming from we are really putting the cart before the horse.”
In the wake of the recent incidents of violence school administrators have called for a collective approach to responding to the problem, one that involves the Ministries of Education and Human Services, the police and parents. “Personally, I see no evidence of any real attempt to pursue that collective approach. I believe that the appropriate starting point is for us to try to ensure that children with violent backgrounds or children who have been exposed to violence do not bring those habits into the schools. I am not suggesting that this is an easy task but this is where we have to start. It really makes no sense in ignoring the problems at their source then seeking to remedy them after they have already become rampant,” the Ministry official says.
While efforts to strengthen parent involvement in shaping the in-school culture through greater emphasis on Parent Teacher Associations appears with a measure of success in some schools, the Ministry official says that the accomplishments of PTA’s have been limited. “The sad fact is that in many poor communities in both urban and rural areas where violence among school children occurs most frequently parents feel that they are inadequately equipped to play a meaningful role through the PTA’s. There are other cases in which parents feel that their job is simply to satisfy the legal obligation to ensure that their children attend school. There is no monitoring of what they do either in school or out of school.”
“It gets worse,” according to a Social Studies teacher in a Georgetown primary school. “There are cases in which children are actually encouraged by parents and friends to disrupt and undermine the school system. We have cases in which children have sold drugs in schools; where they walk with offensive weapons and where they are deliberately aggressive to other students and teachers. In these cases their own reputations and the reputations of their parents are well-known and since the rules say that the school has no authority to expel the child or children they basically become a burden to the school and a threat to good order.”
The consensus of opinion is that the Ministry of Education has failed to fashion a workable plan to tackle the problem of violence and other forms of delinquency in schools. “There really is no well -thought – out plan to respond to the crisis as far as I am aware,” the Georgetown-based Education Ministry official says. “We have to begin by understanding that we have a responsibility to deliver education in an appropriate environment and that any plan has to address the issue of how we create that environment. The violence is a learned phenomenon. We need to trace it to its sources and obviously the home and the community in which the children live are among those sources.”
Inevitably, the issue of what is loosely described as ‘old-fashioned values” arise. A near-retired Head Teacher says that problems associated with the behavior of children “in and out of school” has to do with what he describes as ‘an abandonment of the old ways.” He believes that “there is no longer the kind of emphasis on the kind of training at home that would see the schools receiving well-mannered and responsible children. Those of us who are part of the education system have really not been keeping track of these falling standards and seeking to respond to them. Perhaps we have become so preoccupied with the curriculum aspects of the system that we have ignored the need to create that environment in which we can best apply positive developments in the curriculum.”
Teachers interviewed by The Guyana Review have their own ‘take’ on the problem of violence in schools. On the whole they argue that their own training does not ideally equip them to respond to the levels of aggression and violence that manifest themselves in schools across the country. “What we are faced with goes far beyond normal classroom mischief and petty bullying. Sad as it is we are confronted with violent children who would not think twice to injure a teacher. That relationship of respect that children used to have for their teachers is no longer there. Some us are afraid for our safety,” a Georgetown primary school teacher says.
Under the existing Manual Head Teachers are responsible for “the formulation and implementation of a Code of Conduct and a Disciplinary Policy” for his or her school and establishing “partnerships between the home school and community by encouraging active participation” in the formulation of the Code of Conduct. “Asking teachers to create individual Codes of Conduct for their schools, which is what the manual asks them to do really makes no sense. Disciplinary policy should flow from the Ministry. The other problem is, of course, that the partnership with parents and with the community which the Manual speaks about is difficult to establish and there is need for support from the Ministry in establishment of those partnerships. Regrettably, that support is not always forthcoming.”
Efforts by the Ministry of Education to upgrade and modernize a disciplinary Manual which, manifestly, was not framed to meet the contemporary challenges associated with violence in schools has been ponderous. More than that, whether or not the Ministry, on its own, is equipped to develop an effective Code of Discipline for schools, is doubtful. The existing Schools Welfare Department has no substantive Head and only a handful of schools have immediate access to Welfare Officers. “Guidance and counseling for both parents and teachers cannot only be applied after incidents like those at Lodge Secondary School recently,” the Education Ministry official says. If you look at the education systems here and even some of the privately-run schools in Guyana you will notice that many of them have full-time Councilors. The other thing that surprises me is that the teacher training system here has not responded to this particular problem by including on its training curriculum some measure of training in guidance and counseling and crisis resolution. We desperately need those skills in our schools,” the Ministry official says.
Among the teachers with whom The Guyana Review spoke there is little optimism that a solution to violence and other forms of deviant behavior in schools and among school children can be found in the short-term. They believe that the incidence of violent crime and drug pedaling and the failure of the authorities to arrest those trends have impacted on the impressionable minds of school-aged children. As one teacher put it “sometimes it seems that violence and other forms of illegal behavior have the upper hand in our society. The children sometimes learn this in the homes and the communities where they live. In a sense, what they have learnt have empowered them. In their minds they do not make a linkage between violence and the consequences of that violence. What this means is that violence in schools is not a problem that the schools can address on their own.”
