Averting strikes in secondary school: Some practises to consider

By Richard Aboko

Recently, the media has been awash with disturbing news about a wave of strikes that have rocked secondary schools across the country, to the extent of  Sheema District having all Secondary Schools there closed prematurely. The causes range from poor feeding to poor sanitation, refusal by school authorities to offer entertainment programmes and other forms of maladministration like school heads.

That morality among students has gone to the dogs in no doubt.  This could be attributed to African cultural erosion, hence drug abuse, alcoholism, intolerane, disrespect aping western culture, etc.

The main purpose of school is to provide learners with an educational foundation from which they can build successful independent lives.However, disruption in the classroom cause road blocks to student achievement. Maintaining discipline in schools is essential in creating an effective learning environment.

While instilling values of integrity, ethics, moral leadership, spiritual awakening, tolerance and entrepreneurship is key in improving discipline. A more holistic approach should be adopted to mitigate social evils blighting secondary schools. This may include: increasing parental involvement ,creating and enforcing a school wide discipline plan, fostering discipline through leadership,pracising  effective follow through providing alternative educational opportunities, building a reputation for fairness, implementing educational effective school wide policies and maintaining high expectations.

Parents truly make a difference in student achievement and behaviour. Schools should institute a policy where teachers are required to contact parents periodically through the year. Half-term or end-of-term reports are often not enough. A parent cannot solve an issue if they do not know it exists.

Discipline plans are a way to provide students with a consistent and fair plan of what will happen if they misbehave. While many schools have a discipline plan in the books, it is often not well known or followed by teachers and administrators. Having it posted in every classroom and in hallways is a good way to start.

The head teachers and their deputies are of major importance in fostering an academically focused school-wide environment. Their actions form the basis of the overall mood for the school. If they are consistent in supporting teachers, implementing the discipline plan, and following through on disciplinary actions, then teachers will follow their lead. On the other hand, if they are lax on discipline, this will become apparent over time and misbehaviour will increase.

Students need to be placed in situations where they are best able to learn without distracting the wider school community.  Alternative schools can help remove students from volatile situations. Even moving students to new classes which can be controlled at the school level can help in some situations. If one student is disrupting a class and after numerous intervention attempts has shown an unwillingness to change, then alternative means of education needs to be investigated for the source of the rest of the students in that class.

Hand in hand with effective leadership and school wide consistent follow through is the belief by students that teachers and administrators are fair in their disciplinary actions. While there are sometimes extenuating circumstances that require administrators to make adjustments for individual students, overall students who misbehave should be treated similarly.

Effective discipline begins with the implementation of school housekeeping policies that all teachers must follow. For example, if a school implements a tardy policy that all teachers and administrators follow, tardies will decrease. If, instead, teachers are expected to handle this individually, some will do a better job than others and tardies will have a tendency to increase.

From administrators to guidance counselors to teachers, schools must institute high expectations for both academic achievement and behaviour. These expectations must include messages of encouragement and means of support to help all children succeed. Michael Rutter researched on the effect of high expectations at school and reported his findings in the book, Fifteen Hundred Hours:            “schools that foster high self-esteem and that promote social and scholastic success reduce the likelihood of emotional and behavioural disturbance.”

The writer is a secondary school teacher and a Post Graduate student at Kyambogo University
abokohard@yahoo.com