Wither discipline in schools?

It is common knowledge that the tone of discipline in schools today has greatly fallen short of what it used to be when even the cracking of voice by a teacher conveyed messages to students. In the 1960s and 1970s, students understood what it meant when a teacher changed his sitting position and could read meanings into the way he walked or even from the look on his face. While it may be difficult to regain that lost glory, it is important that the minimum acceptable standard of discipline is maintained in schools. 

Two recent events though regrettable prompted today’s discourse on this page. The first is the case involving a corps member serving in Zamfara state and a female secondary school student. According to media reports, the corps member Michael Uwakwe entered the classroom and announced to students that he was going to give a test. When he directed them to put away their books, a female student was resentful. While the test was on, she hissed and hissed again. This compelled the corps member to ask why she was exhibiting such a rude behavior. When he got to her seat, he discovered that the student had scribbled “nonsense” on her sheet of paper. 

The teacher, a corps member, felt infuriated and asked the female student to kneel down. When the corps member later returned, the student was nowhere to be found. She had gone home to report the corps member to her father who felt the best way to dare the teacher and the school was to “hire” the police to deal with the corps member. The father of the female student came to the school with police who told the school principal they were there to arrest the corps member. The corps member accepted to go to the station with the police on condition that the principal would accompany him. At the police station, “Mr. Uwakwe was slapped and detained for six hours”, said Mrs. Victoria Okakwu, the NYSC Director (Corps Welfare and Inspectorate). 

Although NYSC authorities have redeployed Michael Uwakwe from Zamfara to Anambra state just as the police commissioner in Zamfara state has tendered apology for the way his personnel handled the matter, the separate reactions of the student, her father and the police are issues that threaten the enforcement of discipline by the school as an institutional authority. These will be put in proper perspectives in the next few paragraphs. 

The second mind-bending incident involved some senior secondary (SS) students of Sa’adu Zungur Model School in Bauchi. They were said to have allegedly contracted “mock marriage” among themselves. It was alleged that a male student, who claimed to be the groom, paid N500 as dowry to “marry” a female student while their classmates contributed money for snacks needed at the ceremony. The school which was closed down after this unfortunate incident has since been re-opened on the orders of the Bauchi State Deputy Governor who is also the State Commissioner for Education.

The action taken by the Bauchi state government after receiving the report of an investigation committee set up to probe the incident is highly commendable. At least, it would deter potential offenders in the same school and elsewhere. Certain misdemeanours persist in the society because lawbreakers were never sanctioned in the past. Equally laudable is the speed with which the investigations were concluded and recommendations executed. Details of the disciplinary measures taken by the Bauchi State Government include the removal of the principal and the two vice principals of the affected school. Seven of the eight students who were prime actors in the “mock marriage” have been expelled from the school. The eighth student is the one who reportedly resisted the proposal.

The two cases speak of the general laxity among today’s secondary school students in Nigeria. Government, school administrators and the home (parents) all share in the blame for the high moral decadence among school boys and girls. But more influential than any other factor in the destruction of our values is modern ICT. The internet is one technology that has since its advent rendered young boys and girls vulnerable to cultures that seek to destroy the fabrics of traditional African society. The mobile telephone is a powerful socialization tool that ubiquitously penetrates the foundations of moral training separately provided at home, in the school, the mosque and church. 

The introduction, by government, of day secondary schools in the early 1980s is another factor that persuasively limited the influence of schools in controlling and monitoring students. The non-professionalization of teaching which permits un-trained and unqualified persons to be a teacher is another critical challenge to the system. If the corps member in Zamfara were a trained and qualified teacher, he would have managed the classroom situation in a professional way that could have forestalled parental irresponsibility and police action. A situation where graduates of B.Sc. and B.A degrees are posted to teach in secondary schools with little or no knowledge of the techniques of classroom management including motivation, reward and punishment is bound to produce the kind of embarrassment that ensued between the corps member and a female student in Zamfara state. 

The home, which is the first school in the life of a child, is perhaps guiltier than government. Contemporary parents take pleasure in over-pampering their children as if the love for the later begins and ends with everything money can provide. Parents who think they are expressing love by disgracing teachers in the presence of their children should know that they could one day become victims of misconducts in the hands of such scoundrel children. 

It is painful to lament the manner in which some school administrators and teachers have turned themselves into “Nanis” for the sake of peanuts they “enjoy” from parents or students. It is only when principals and teachers remain assertive and contented with their job that students and their parents will appreciate the worth of teachers as character moulders. 

Unlike the Bauchi case, the Zamfara incident wasn’t resolved in a way that would send warning signals to students who are thinking of daring their teachers especially corps members. The unruly female student should be punished not just as deterrent to other students but as way of asserting the authority of teachers and the school. May Allah (SWT) guide the Zamfara state ministry of education to decide wisely, amin.