Streaming major cause of strikes

Last year we asked you to write in and share views on causes of and solutions to strikes. We run many letters last year. The five letters we have run today were the best.ALTHOUGH the pretexts for school strikes seem logical, there are other major issues in our education system that may need the intervention of the policy makers. One such issue is streaming. In a very large number of schools children are categorised into A,B,C and D classes, on the basis of their academic ability. The students who are ascertained as educationally weak are allocated a specific class normally D and those ascertained as educationally “ high flyers” are allocated the A stream.Many teachers, unfortunately, believe that streaming is a good practice. They reason that it enables them to identify students with exceptional needs. Teachers also believe that the students may feel challenged and compelled to study hard as a result of the circumstances pertaining inside their stream. Being allocated the stream for high achievers may compel the students in the lower stream to work hard.A number of studies however, have indicated that the practice of streaming is wrought with many problems. For instance, teachers seem to prefer teaching students with high academic ability because they require less attention and are “easy to teach” as one teacher in Iganga observed. Several teachers in Iganga also confessed that streams of weak students are often neglected because the teachers find them less motivating to teach. Most importantly though, the way children are streamed into ability groups can have a direct influence on their behaviour. It can also affect their educational attainment, isolating students with low academic ability.This may hurt their already low self image further by creating the impression that they are a failure. Some researchers have reported differences in behaviour between students of the A stream and those of the D stream. In the lower stream (D), students behave quite differently. “Messing” is the norm there. The students are also given little prestige by those in authority who refer to them as “lazy” and a “waste of time.” The students are thus deprived of status by being labelled failures.One solution to being defined as a failure is to reject the system, the people who define you and the values they represent. The D student rejects the value of the school such as good work, high educational attainment and good manners. They also develop values in opposition to those up held by the school. “Being bad becomes being good.” Disrupting lessons, giving teachers problems, refusing to do homework, fighting and smoking on school premises is applauded by those in lower streams. Students in the lower streams choose friends from their own stream in which they can gain status and respect. in this way the anti-school peer group is formed. A lower stream student, who is defined as unsuccessful by the school, can be highly regarded in terms of the values of the anti-school peer group.In this way the students help to solve their problem of status deprivation and frustration brought about by the school. By acting in terms of the values of the anti-school peer group, they at least have a chance of being successful in somebody’s eyes.Streaming in schools may therefore be the inherent cause of strikes in our schools.Modern teaching practice encourages integrating students of varying academic abilities in the same stream. The real world is integrated. The classroom therefore ought to be a reflection of such a reality if it is to be relevant. Besides, educational psychologists believe that when integrated, children benefit from one another by complementing their unique endowments as they interact. Integration saves the weak student the pain of being labelled a failure and emotional problems. That could be the way forward.Moses Bakaswirewa,Lecturer Educational Psychology,Busoga University,Iganga.