By Enock Kibuuka

EDITOR: For the past few weeks, it appeared students’ indiscipline in schools had reached its epitome, so said some of the educationists, teachers, and Ministry of Education officials.

In the past few weeks, we have seen and heard many indiscipline cases in many schools where some students have been either suspended or indefinitely expelled from their schools.

This wave of moral turpitude has not spared the so-called ‘first-class’ or ‘big-schools’ either.

Cases of narcotic drug use or abuse by students, theft, drinking alcohol, sexual immorality, and other forms of moral bankruptcy have severely hit many schools.

Many analysts, teachers, school heads and officials in the Ministry of Education and Sports have alluded to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the close to two-year lockdowns when education institutions were closed to thwart the spread of the virus, that impacted the morals of these young adults as they were presumably subjected to various lifestyles and experiences.

I want to pose a few questions here: would the situation have been better if there had been no COVID-19 or lockdown? Are these not the same student indiscipline cases schools have consistently battled with many years before the world ever heard of COVID-19? What then induced students to perpetrate these moral mischiefs?

Hence I reject this prognosis of COVID-19 as it is devoid sociological wisdom and understanding. The Lubiri High school students who reportedly hired a Midland High school bus in which they allegedly engaged themselves in erotic dances, fondling and canoodling raised dust up to the Ministry of Education and Sports, Police, and other key stakeholders. Although I strongly condemn this morally unfortunate incident by the Lubiri High school students.

As teachers, educationists and education policy makers and analysts, we need to appreciate one fact that the education landscape in which teaching and learning is happening has shifted seismically. The current generation of students we have in our education institutions is referred to as Millennials or simply Generation Y. the birth years of this generation ranges between 1990 into the 2000s.

Some of the characteristics of this generation include, but not limited to: many of them are from divorced or single-parent families; they are overindulged and self-absorbed; they are technologically savvy; self-confident and feeling entitled; ambitious with high and in some cases utopia expectations; they are always in a hurry and want to start at the top; they move quickly from one thing to another without critical reflection and synthesis; they are not as independent hence succumb quickly to the weight of peer influence and they are more exposed and so they are victims of virtually unregulated information era (social media, television, newspapers and tabloids, etc.).

All these life experiences impact on the behaviour, conduct, character and personality of these students. With the weakening institution of the family, as well as religious capitalism that has seen the declining institution of the church, or generally the essence and virtues of religion, many of these young adults are at large. Thus in order for us as teachers, school heads, boards of governors (BOGs) or school committees to effectively deal with adolescent or juvenile transgressions in schools, it is important for us first and fore most to understand why these students perpetrate certain delinquent acts in the first place.

Some of the reasons behind these student transgressions may be obvious, for example, lack (or ignorance) of school rules and regulations that are supposed to guide and regulate student behaviour and conduct while in school, a weak supervision and monitoring systems of students behaviour in school; family background and personality traits of individual students. However, there is need for us to appreciate the well-researched sociological and criminological accounts as to why students perpetrate certain acts in schools.

• Alcohol and drug use and abuse. Again this may sound somewhat an obvious reason. However, for students who use these substances, they get overpowered and disarmed by the alcohol or narcotic drugs and accordingly lose the power of self-control to choose between what is right and wrong. This impaired judgment, suspended as it may by intoxication is the exact reason why some students act the way they do.
• Compulsive behaviour. This suggests that sometimes students do certain acts due to reasons out of their control that deprive the person of his or her powers to decide rationally. Such forces could be psychological or mental disorders. Disorders such as kleptomania, pyromania, nymphomania, insanity, etc. may account for specific student transgressions. Disappointments in life and broken trust of feelings fall under this account.
• Tail of repertory. Some students do certain acts simply because of the urge to revenge on their fellow students who irked them some time, say in the dormitory, classroom, or school compound. For example, student X may have lost or stolen student Y’s calculator or textbook and he/she refuses or fails to compensate the offended. Student X may also hide or actually steal student Y’s textbook simply to feel compensated of his/her lost calculator, but not because this student X is actually a thief.
• Thrills of frustration. Sometimes students do certain acts due to frustration, fatigue, and accumulated academic pressure, tension, fear, and emotional anguish. That is, given an opportunity, some students would just want to wash off this frustration and fatigue. For example, in many student promos or school dances, students get excited, some want to adventure, or experiment, which can all be corralled to the frustration account. Students’ family issues or their parents’ marital crises also impact on some students and as such they get tensed up or frustrated, especially when such marital issues even threaten the students’ future education like uncertainty of who will pay the school fees and other scholastic needs.
• Peer influence and student sub-cultures. “Birds of the same feather flock together” so goes the adage. Group-Think and student subcultures in schools are a common phenomenon. Sometimes students get over powered by the group norms, or simply their claimed ‘friends.’ So here the sense of excuse is absent and it becomes a mere fact that ‘someone’ or ‘my group’, or ‘my friend’ suggested that we do this or that. Thus the victim is exculpated by implication and accordingly succumbs to the peer pressure. For example, habits such as truancy, alcoholism, drug use/abuse, lesbianism, homosexuality in schools, pornographic obsessions fall under here. This collective stupidity is often times a common cause of student misbehaviour.
• Pleasure seeking and opportunity dopes. This explains the utilitarian nature of student transgression. In the etiology of crime, this is the opportunity structure where someone needs something, but his or her caretakers or benefactors or parents/guardian cannot or is unable to provide that want or need. The student may end up committing a crime. Most of the thefts by students in schools fall under this account. For example, student X’s parents may not have paid for his or her school trip, and this desperate student ends up stealing another student’s money just to pay for the trip, or school party, etc. Or a student may steal another student’s textbook because of the need to have one. Another example, is when a student cheats an examination just to be able to score higher or better grades after failed trials to score highly on his or her own efforts. And it is also because some teachers or parents harass, ridicule, or even beat students for the poor academic performance.

There could be other accounts that may explain student delinquency such as habit, accident or mistake, etc. However, those that I have highlighted above take prominence. The way forward to abate student transgressions in schools would require a case-by-case approach, especially where we need to properly investigate and analyze the underlying issues and motivation factors that lead a particular student to commit a specific crime.

However, there are some general interventions we may consider:

• Regularly and constantly reminding students of the school rules and regulations as most may have lost the hardcopy of the school rules and regulations on their day of admission into the school. There is also need to remind the students of the implications and consequences of breaching these rules of engagement. This helps to inculcate student conscience discipline.
• Teachers and school heads need to use bottom-up approach to student issues and affairs, professionally befriending students, sometimes occasionally engaging in their casual talks and jokes while creating clear professional boundaries so that the teacher is not taken for granted. This helps to win the student’s trust seeing the teacher or headteacher as a “friend” and so students will always fear to disappoint this teacher by any form of transgression. The student will fear the shame and embarrassment of losing his or reputation as well as losing the trust that the teacher has in him or her.
• Strengthening counseling and guidance services in schools and always encouraging students to seek the counselors’ help whenever they feel frustration, depression, anxiety, fear, tension, emotional anguish, mood swings, extreme confusion, etc.
• Occasionally, and in a controlled manner, school heads should organize in-house school parties or dances for students, or credible movies, or documentaries, may be once at the end of every month, making it three times a term. It can be on a Saturday from 3pm to 6pm. This helps students to shed off frustrations, depressions, fear, anxiety, fatigue.
• Encouraging co-curricular activities such as games and sports, physical education (PE), debates, school clubs and societies. These help to productively engage students outside the intense academic schedules. These also help students to identify, nurture and develop their talents, abilities, and capabilities and so be more purposely focused.
• On top of the overt student monitoring and supervision mechanisms such as student leaders (prefects) or class captains, school heads may also employ moderate covert monitoring mechanisms. For example, using students as inside-outsiders or informants especially in dormitories, where most of the students’ filthy plans take place. These student informants can then quickly inform the teacher-on-duty, or any teacher or school security guards or headteacher of such student plans like riots, burning the school. This can enable the school authorities to take the necessary proactive steps to circumvent the possible unfortunate incident.
• Openly rewarding good student behaviour and character and reprimanding those undesirable behaviour and mischiefs. This helps to encourage good citizenship in and outside school. It also helps to alert students that there are undesirable consequences to transgression. This specific and general deterrence mechanisms can be useful.
• Above all, schools should inculcate morals, values and virtues among students. Religious values and principles should be emphasized in schools, prayers, and other necessary religious activities such as Bible studies, and fellowships should be encouraged. These help to bring students closer to God, they help students to develop and strength their faith, and reflection and re-examination of their behaviour and conduct. Once students’ moral chains are strengthened, transgressions will be minimal.

Lastly, teachers are among the most important influences on the life and development of many young children. They play a key role in creating the generations of the future. With the decline of the church, the break-up of traditional communities, and the diminishing contact that many children have with their parents who can ‘be there’ for their children on a daily basis, the moral role and importance of today’s teacher is probably greater than it has been for a long time. So many problems, behavioural and social problems that are sitting in your classroom that have to be dealt with before you can ever attempt to start teaching. Teaching is not just a technical business. It is a moral one too.

The writer is an education policy consultant.