The past few months have been a challenging period for discipline in state-run schools. Truth be told, what recent events have spelt out all too clearly is the fact that we have arrived at a juncture where the Ministry of Education cannot lay claim to anything even remotely resembling a convivial environment in the affected schools.
Safe and tranquil teaching/learning spaces are critical to effective education delivery. Our schools, at least quite a few of them, do not always provide that facility. What obtains in some instances are deep disconnects between home and school and school and charges which, on occasion, boil over into open and dangerous confrontations. We deny or ignore these truths at the expense of the effectiveness of the education system itself. Indeed, there have been a number of recent incidents that point to secretions of toxicity in the system. They are real, disruptive and altogether inimical to effective education delivery.
During a period of less than two weeks instances of separate physical attacks on teachers at state schools occurred. More recently an uproarious brawl at a third state school during which a teacher resorted to arming herself with a cutlass attracted wide-ranging public comment.
Three of the most recent examples of what our state school education system is up against (one of which was the subject of the Stabroek News editorial of Tuesday March 21) are reflected, first, in the ‘armed gang attack’ on the Harmonie Secondary School at Wismar, reportedly at the instigation of a student of the school cum gang member seeking ‘payback’ for some offence done him by a fellow student. The second had to do with the physical assault on a teacher at the Fort Wellington Secondary School reportedly by the ‘connections’ of a child who, took umbrage over being subjected to in-school disciplinary measures and decided to call in his ‘troops.’ The most recent incident (an in-school brawl would be a more appropriate describing of this particular occurrence) occurred at the Houston Secondary School.
The painful truth here is that these are by no means uncommon occurrences, a circumstance which, as last Tuesday’s editorial pointed out, raises the question as to whether the Ministry of Education is able, at the present time, to proffer a ‘formula’ for good order in affected state-run schools, that can provide reasonable assurances of a conducive environment.
It is not, principally, the issue of the recurrence of these types of incidents in state-run schools that is being discussed here. It is the failure of the Ministry of Education – given both its rules-based regime and the facility of law enforcement that are at its disposal – to push back against the transformation of some of our school premises into ‘war zones’, that is the main worry. There are two concerns here. The first has to do with the incremental imperilling of the teaching/learning environment; the second is the persistence of the challenge, presumed attempts at corrective measures on the part of the Ministry notwithstanding.
The effective protection of teachers in an environment where, reportedly, their charges, in some instances, are members of gangs that play enforcer roles that are hugely disruptive the teaching/learning process is a challenge that will continue to prove difficult to overcome in circumstances where, in many instances, the absence of functioning PTA’s have created gulfs between homes and communities, on the one hand, and schools, on the other. This fault line is largely responsible for the absence of what ought to be a shared responsibility for the management of schools and school communities and the creation of gaps in relationships between home (parents) and school which void can (and apparently does) increase the likelihood of poor relations between home and school which can result in miscommunication and confrontation.
As last Tuesday’s Stabroek News editorial sought to point out the solution to the problem has to begin with us taking away the ‘free pass’ which the Ministry of Education has long enjoyed in the matter of in-school discipline. Certainly, responsibility for good order cannot be laid at the feet of those uproarious elements who shamelessly target the schools and teachers that serve their children for verbal and physical abuse. The Ministry of Education, buttressed by the support of law enforcement, possesses a state-bestowed obligation to provide safe spaces for education delivery and to establish the requisite supporting links between schools and homes/communities. The evidence of the profusion of unseemly and dangerous in-school/on-premises altercations suggests that in the matter of this particular responsibility, the Ministry is performing at a level that is well-below reasonable expectations.
What, one might ask, can be more challenging, more intimidating for a teacher being confronted with the challenge of ‘managing’ a child who possesses the capacity to summon minders/enforcers at the drop of a proverbial hat in circumstances where the teacher might move to enforce some perfectly legitimate sanction. By the same token it is, to say the least, deeply disheartening that a teacher, thinking himself or herself to be in imminent danger of assault opts to choose a cutlass as a defence mechanism of choice. Here, we can only hope that the practice does not become embedded in the culture of settling differences between parents/minders, on the one hand and teachers, on the other.
What is needed here is a more deliberate boots on the ground approach by the Ministry of Education. Such an approach makes more adequate room for the Ministry of Education to amend what, all too often, appears to be a conjectural approach to tackling real and all too frequently, serious problems. It can no longer be spared some of the more critical obligations associated with the effective execution of its portfolio.