However, in case anyone has been labouring under the illusion that Guyana has a problem with violence in schools, Minister Baksh quickly set them right. He said that a survey over a six-month period found violent behaviour in 26 schools with 62 cases involving 117 students. This wasn’t the problem; what he said next was. These figures, he told the forum, represented less than 3% of the schools in the country and 0.05% of the school population. He indicated that the problem was not widespread and would be dealt with seriously and promptly. Well if that is indeed so, some ‘stakeholders’ must have been asking themselves, what on earth were they all doing there? There hardly needed to be a forum at all, since apparently the ministry had the situation in hand and would deal ‘promptly’ with any isolated incidents which occurred.
Unfortunately for the Minister no one has ever suggested that the violence is ‘widespread’ in a geographical sense, and he is being disingenuous to suggest that because it is not, everything is in hand. The public knows well that the violence is concentrated mostly in urban or urbanized areas, and even there generally in particular locales with community high schools being most at risk (although not the only ones at risk, it must be said). Minister Baksh’s statistics, therefore, are totally meaningless, since in the geographical locations where violence is in evidence, it is, contrary to what he seems to be averring, a very serious problem. Furthermore, he dismissed press reports on the matter by claiming that “often the information presented as news is furthest from the truth and is rooted in hearsay rather than solid statistics.”
One hopes he was not dispensing with our news reports on the situation in Lodge School, which experienced three incidents of violence in one week. This newspaper was told, “We as teachers are afraid. There is not much we can do. We can’t control the children and it is frightening.” Several students came to school, but failed to go to their classrooms, it was said, and outside the gate gambling and other activities went on. “We would try to get them into the classrooms, a member of staff informed us, “but they refuse… What more can we do?” Youngsters have no respect for teachers.
Has the Minister had a statistical survey undertaken of how many teachers in urban schools where violence has been an issue (or even urban schools in general) feel the children are out of control? Has he done a statistical survey on how many are afraid of some of their charges? Has he had any of his officers check over a period of time how many children can be found outside the school gates at Lodge during school hours? If he hasn’t, by what right does he dismiss what teachers have had to say on what is happening in certain schools as “hearsay”?
And if the Minister was not persuaded by the extraordinary accounts from staff of what was going on in Lodge, then, there was the case of Tutorial High (among others) as well, where the view was expressed to our reporter, “Teachers need to take back the schools.” The problem, it was said, was that most schools had gangs which were fighting among themselves – the Gaza and Gully phenomenon. The issue of gangs did not rear its head this year or last for the first time; among others there was the case of the student gangs in Wisburg Secondary School; these were engaging in acts of violence in 2007.
Now if Minister Baksh wants to close his eyes to reports in this newspaper, then so be it; but surely his education officers have given him official reports on what is happening in certain schools which would have caused him to sit up. If they haven’t done a comprehensive analysis of the situation in Lodge, for example, then they are clearly not discharging their function, and if they have, but he is choosing to ignore them, then he is not discharging his. It is nearly as bad if he accepts what they have to say privately, but for the purposes of public image, he pretends there is no major problem.
One suspects that the latter might be the case, since he was at some pains to tell the forum the measures which his ministry had taken to confront the issue. These included the introduction of child-friendly schools in Region 2; the Health and Family Life Education programme; training teachers to respond to crisis situations; strengthening the Schools Welfare Department, along with placing officers in selected schools; and the mentoring programme. He also made reference to legislation currently in the Attorney General’s Chambers for the introduction of Students’ Councils, among other things. Where this is concerned, one proposal is, apparently, to have the councils monitor the behaviour of students and report on the performance of teachers in the classroom.
One wonders if the Minister is serious. Exactly how a teacher’s authority which has already been undermined by a vacillating and not very supportive ministry is to be boosted by having the very students who are out of control report on their teachers is something of a mystery. Student councils probably work fine in stable school situations, but are surely not recommended where the Gaza and Gully gangs can be given leeway to operate incognito in an institutional setting, targeting teachers they dislike or perhaps generating even further fuel for fights. It should be added that this is not to say that teachers do not need monitoring, and that the behaviour of more of them than should be the case is a cause for concern. However, this is a different problem requiring a separate approach, and the answer to the current matter of violence in schools will not be found in subverting their authority further.
As was said in the Thursday editorial, the situation in the schools is a reflection of what is going on in the wider society; it is impossible to insulate our educational institutions from it. As has been observed on many occasions too, teachers no longer have the status they once had, at least in part because education is no longer seen by a significant proportion of the population as a goal in life. Many parents send their children to school partly, at least, because the law says they have to. As someone from Tutorial told us, teachers get little support from parents in general, and most do not attend PTA meetings. “They only come,” we were told, “when their children are involved in an incident and many of them come to argue not to help.”
Violence in schools, of course, is only an extreme manifestation of disciplinary problems in general; wherever discipline is poor, there is a greater likelihood of violence rearing its head. But the Ministry of Education has hardly been a beacon of enlightenment for teachers where that is concerned. February’s edition of the Guyana Review made reference to the ministry’s disciplinary manual, which it described as vague and unimplementable. Unless there is a clear disciplinary framework; teachers, ministry officials and students have no doubt about what everyone’s powers are; and there is a context in which teachers and head teachers in particular, know they can rely on the ministry for support when they are in need and in the right, not much progress will be made.
It is not that several of the ministry’s programmes do not have a role to play in addressing violence and disciplinary problems in general in schools, it is more that the whole approach has the whiff of the ad hoc about it.
There has been no in-depth analysis of what is happening in the school system – after all the Minister has denied there is a ‘widespread’ problem − what its root causes are, and having isolated those causes, devising comprehensive strategies for improving the situation. And those strategies might not be identical for all areas; local factors have to be taken into account.
Finally, the Minister made mention of the Sophia Special School where delinquents could be sent. Has he had a recent survey undertaken to see how effective that has been in reforming out-of-control students?
