By now this newspaper runs a serious risk of sounding like a stuck record on the subject of violence among schoolchildren and in schools.
The continual loss of teacher authority in some of our schools is one of the most disturbing consequences of the problem. Current teacher protests point to concerns over what they perceive to be the physical threats to their persons being posed by the tide of student violence. More than that, they are making the point through their protests that the pyramid of authority that has held the education system together is in danger of being eroded, hardly a hypothetical musing when account is taken of the telling message that has been sent by the recent frightening Wisburg Secondary school incident in which a young teacher was seriously injured in a booby trap set by students. It is not the first time in which the actions of students have resulted in injuries to a teacher. This time around, however, teachers appear to have been sufficiently chastened to see the incident for what it is – a symbolic turning point as far as teacher authority is concerned and a manifestation of the significant worsening of student insurgency in our schools.
The teacher protest is as much a collective expression of deep personal concern as it is an appeal for help. The Minister of Education has responded with a verbal expression of support for the beleaguered teachers and a promise to ‘come down hard’ on students who target teachers for physical attacks. That response, however, is nowhere adequate though the Minister’s promise to read the riot act causes the problem to appear almost surreal- students ‘gone wild,’ teachers throwing up their hands in resignation and the authorities and the delinquent students in an ‘eyeball to eyeball’ faceoff.
Will the authority of the Minister match the irresponsible recklessness of youth or will officialdom eventually find a way of bringing the delinquents to heel? Those students who appear to have established a bridgehead of lawlessness in some schools and who sometimes appear to have the tacit support of influences outside of the school will probably not be inclined to surrender what they may well perceive as their gains that easily. That is precisely why, after the Wisburg incident, the Minister of Education has to publicly draw a line in the sand and take the kinds of action that send a poignant message to violent schoolchildren and their parents. Otherwise, teacher apprehension will spread and the very delivery of education will stand imperilled. The Minister cannot afford to let this pass.
As yet we have no clear idea of the extent of the problem of violent schoolchildren. This – as we have said before – has to do with the fact that the Ministry of Education has, up until now, appeared indecisive and piecemeal in its response. No one can doubt, however, that the problem is a serious one, arguably the most serious one affecting our education system. We must hope that the issue of the physical well-being of teachers and their attendant loss of authority galvanizes the technicians in the Ministry of Education into feeding the Minister creative and workable ideas.
One can hardly think of a more serious challenge to the country’s education system than a circumstance in which the authorities are unable to guarantee safe spaces and a convivial environment in which teaching and learning can take place and we believe that some of our schools are prone to incidents that make them unable to provide such guarantees.
Much as we would like to take the Education Minister at her word on the matter of putting remedial mechanisms in place, precedent does not fill us with optimism. The Ministry, over the years, has been neither assertive nor creative in dealing with this problem. The upshot of this is that some children in some schools appear to have positioned themselves to ‘run things’ and now we are seeing evidence of teachers assuming a defensive posture.
The Ministry of Education may not be inclined to admit it but there appears to be instances in which violent students are gaining ground in circumstances where nothing effective is being done to rein them in. Again we say that the Ministry of Education can do much worse than adopt strategies that hold parents accountable.
