Our education system, more correctly, our society as a whole, is currently close to its wit’s end as to how to push back against what has been a near complete loss of control, no less, over basic good order in the state schools system. It goes further. The various recent instances of deviant behaviour ranging from heinous child-on-child violence to ugly physical confrontations between teachers and parents have, in recent times, been the most profound manifestations of a seriously diminished sense of good order. The crisis (and we must make no mistake, that is precisely what it is) does not have to do only with the ineffectiveness of mechanisms that allow for the effective enforcement of a given set of rules within the physical boundaries of the schools, but also with a loss of ability to ensure that laid-down rules that serve as discipline-related criteria for children being able to attend school, in the first place, are properly enforced. In other words, it is not just in-school discipline but the very functional existence of the school system itself that is under threat.
The root of the problem reposes in the considerable collapse of the ‘contract’ that holds the structured delivery of formal, in-school education, together. That ‘contract,’ embraces the school system, the home and the wider society. Their responsibility, collectively, is to protect the integrity of the education system. That integrity, these days, is in a condition of serious fracture. The greater matter of concern is that the fracture may not be easily repairable since a cure goes beyond the mere application of resource-related remedies.
At the level of the wider society we have had to endure (for all sorts of reasons) a decline in the standards by which we govern our behaviour. This problem has become sufficiently pervasive to infect the society, at every level. Homes and in some instances substantial portions of entire communities stand seriously disfigured by serious deficiencies, particularly at the levels of in-home leadership, parental example and adequate material resources to work with. Not surprisingly, the crisis festers and grows worse.
Needless to say, what obtains today has impacted the current generation of children powerfully. In fact, out of the social upheaval was born a new breed, tutored by the environment into which they came to do things differently. In a host of instances they did not have to look beyond the walls of their own homes to access the examples that now shape their own dispositions and values. Mimicry as well as re-enforcement born of example-setting occurrences in their own homes have made them what they are.
There are, of course, those whom, through the example of homes that espoused more worthwhile values, have gone down a different road. The problem was that the school system into which every child eventually found itself (and here one makes allowances for the fact the large numbers of children simply never attended school) had no authority to be discriminatory in its admission procedures. Poor children, so the axiom goes, have no less prerogative than their better-off counterparts, to a state-provided education.
Equality in access has had its considerable downside. It presented challenges which, truth be told, the schools themselves were never really prepared for, given their own lack of resources. State schools have had little choice but to endure what one might call the ‘umbrella’ policy that frowned fiercely on a discriminatory approach to school admission. In effect, groups of children brought up in different circumstances and embracing different values, found themselves cheek by jowl on the school benches. There are, seemingly increasingly, instances in which parents suitably positioned to make optional choices are doing so.
But that was not the only problem. In circumstances where the effective management of the school required both the home and the school to ‘chip in,’ the system has been compromised on account of delinquency on one side or another. One particular and unfortunate (bizarre may be a more appropriate word here) manifestation of that delinquency has been the striking, by parents, of a hostile posture to school rules that ran counter to the standards that they had set in their homes and that had obtained in their communities; so that instances have arisen in which attempts by schools to enforce rules relating to particular standards of discipline and overall compliance were rejected by some parents in ways that can (as the various current examples illustrate) have at times descended into downright lawlessness.
This, of course, is not to say that there have not been instances in which teachers, whether on account of shortcomings in their training or otherwise, have not themselves, at times, behaved in a manner that might have precipitated or exacerbated confrontations. The point that one seeks to make, here, however, is that there are far too many instances in which soured parent/teacher relationships (which are critical to the effective functioning of the school system) arise to undermine the system. Children, of course, are usually at the center of those differences, which these days, contribute to a toxic environment in which education delivery is undermined and cannot, in the circumstances, be expected to properly serve its purpose.
With hindsight, our education system has never really been prepared, over time, either to evade the crisis that it faces or to proffer effective remedial responses. Certainly, there is evidence that had there, for example, been a much stronger emphasis on a more central role for Parent/Teacher Associations (PTA’s) these would have helped not just to better shape the relationship between the school and the home but to help raise the alarm about dysfunctional homes (and or communities), the particular ways in which this was impacting the school system and the kinds of planned responses that might be mounted. Frankly, it has to be said that, for various reasons, all of the stakeholders (the Ministry of Education, the in-school administrators and the parents), for the most part, have seriously ‘missed the bus,’ insofar as the crucial role that PTA’s can play in pushing back against child and parent-related problems that undermine the effectiveness of the school system. In effect, some of the serious in-school problems that we have to grapple with these days are largely a function of the serious neglect of the PTA as a key mechanism for fostering closer home/school relationships. Put differently, the policy-makers have failed to ‘read the tea leaves’ correctly.
There is another way of putting it. Even as the monster of disruptive, out-of-control children displaying alarmingly deviant behavior was rearing its head, the ‘system’ was refusing to take a look at what was under their very noses, for responses to the challenge.
We are now at a point of confrontation on the proverbial ‘front line.’ Our teachers, for example, cannot be expected to embrace, as part of their duties, the responsibility of tutoring dysfunctional children whilst at the same time having to make allowances for aggressive, in-your-face parents who are unmindful of the dimension of rules and of discipline that are part of the education delivery culture. Here, one should add, of course, that where teachers are not, either by personal disposition or by professional training, equipped to address these kinds of challenges in a manner that reduces the risk of confrontation, the problem is only likely to grow worse.
Teachers, it has to be said, stand at the front line of this challenge. That challenge, in some instances, includes the considerable likelihood of having to interface, frequently, with violent, weapon-carrying children.
These days, when incidents between or among feuding schoolchildren – either in playgrounds or on the streets – erupt into violent brawls, no wild-cane-waving head teacher, teacher (or public-spirited citizen if the incident occurs in public) dare intervene without risking the assertive, even aggressive disapproval of the feuding parties. More to the point, there is a considerable likelihood that disapproval of such interventions may become manifested in decidedly violent ways.
What we loosely call ‘the system’ rounds out the equation. The system, as defined here, comprises the Ministry of Education and its various departments and those functionaries (head teachers, teachers and PTA’s) which, collectively, are responsible for (in one way or another) managing schools. PTA’s are creatures of collaboration between the school and the home. They will only be effective if there is the strongest commitment, on both sides, to the joint execution of a particular set of goals. The stronger the links between the school and the home (which is largely what the PTA is all about) the more effective the mechanism for managing children within the school system is likely to be. The PTA regime has, in a number of instances, become dysfunctional. There are too many cases in which the lines that separate the responsibilities of the school administration (school heads and teachers) from that of the PTA (the collective comprising the substantive school administration and the parents) have become blurred to the point where ‘turf wars’ ensue and where the PTA’s themselves become impotent.
There are a host of ways in which PTA’s can contribute to the strengthening of the home/school relationship in areas such as event planning and fund-raising. Beyond those, there are functions that have to do with fostering a convivial relationship between the home and the school. Indeed, there is a highly credible school of thought that posits that transgressions like violence in schools and among schoolchildren, the peddling of drugs in schools, the bringing of concealed weapons onto school premises, bullying and other vices that are having the effect of undermining the impact of the teaching/learning process, can be pushed back, perhaps even eradicated through the persistence of strong and vibrant PTA’s.
Of course, there is as well, irrefutable evidence, that children who benefit from the constant attention and support of their parents in the accomplishment of their in-school pursuits are usually more compliant, more attentive and ultimately more successful in school. All that being said, there are lines which PTA’s simply cannot be permitted to cross when it comes to school administration.
Then there are the teachers. This aspect of the analysis cannot exclude the critical role that the teacher plays, all too often against odds that have to do with both an absence of critical tools and with considerably deficient material incentives. If it remains true that teaching is a vocation and that the material rewards, frequently, do not usually match the effort, we need to be mindful that we not push that argument to the extent where we do our teachers a grave injustice. After all, teachers do not live in a bubble. They are the ‘front line’ of any official pushback against a collapse of our education system. To neglect to provide them with the tools with which to work (and one of those tools, undoubtedly, must be at least a certain reasonable level of remuneration) is to run the risk that their burden will become unbearable. Moreover, while material resources may be scarce, one feels that, all too often, it is as much the absence of rules-based ‘ammunition’ as it is a deficiency of material incentives that inhibits their effectiveness as teachers.
Examination of the school system leaves a strong impression (and the evidence here is more than anecdotal) that, in their day to day existence, schools function with some element of normalcy based almost entirely on what sometimes appears to be the tenuous hold of committed but frustrated heads and teachers. Indeed, heads and schools and teachers, have, in many instances, become persistently if discreetly critical of the over-arching management regime of the Ministry of Education. They appear to perceive it as a remote control kind of arrangement underpinned by rules that are anachronistic to the point of having become irrelevant. Often, there is a sense that substantive school administrators acknowledge official rules simply because these have been handed down by their functional superiors but without being persuaded in the least about the extent of their efficacy.
If we are to be able to look to the state school system to perform its functions effectively then there is need to begin to work, seriously, to remove the hindrances to their effective pursuit of those responsibilities. Some of the problems are of a more inhibiting nature than others and must be tacked as matters of priority. One of those, unquestionably, is the dysfunctional nature of the relationship between home and school and the consequential confrontation that has resulted between children whom, the law dictates, must be provided with an education and school authorities that are facing stubborn even dangerous resistance from children and in too many instances, parents, in their attempts to do their jobs.
The solution to the problem reposes not just in the coming together of the various disciplines that can address the problem but, as well, the creation of an enabling environment which requires inputs from the administrators at every level of the education system as well as from communities, parents and from the children themselves. The cosmetic and ‘make believe’ solutions that have been applied up to this time have to be set aside now if the system is to be salvaged.