Discipline is an important element in education for students and teachers at all levels of education. Where indiscipline is allowed to thrive, it flourishes and bears fruits that are not only ugly but destructive.
Today indiscipline in our schools can be seen in many shades such as students going to school after 9 am, the use of mobile phones on campus, stabbing colleagues and even fighting teachers to carrying mobile phones into the WASSCE exam hall.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) in 2017 officially banned all forms of corporal punishment of children in schools in Ghana as part of efforts aimed at promoting a safe and protective learning environment for children. The introduction of the Positive Discipline Toolkit, which provides alternatives to corporal punishment, was expected to be a game-changer, but it seems not to be the case.
However, the absence of canes and corporal punishment should not lead to an increase in indiscipline, and no teacher or teacher union should make it seem as though that is the reason for the rise in indiscipline. Disciplining students or making them fall in line must not necessarily be done with a cane. Maintaining school discipline and individual student discipline is a skill and art that must be earned and applied carefully by educators.
The death of the O’Reilly SHS student after a fight that led to him being stabbed is a critical red flag. Teachers in our Senior High Schools continue to complain about their inability to discipline students. Their concerns have become louder after this tragic incident. But why are teachers not able to discipline their students at the SHS level?
For many educators today, looking on unconcerned when students do not obey school rules seems the safest option for them due to pronouncements by officers of the GES, like Ivy Kumi, Director of the Guidance and Counselling Unit. On Citi TV’s “The Point of View,” she urged parents to take on teachers who cane their children, as it amounts to assault.
Is it that indiscipline has become the order of the day in our SHSs because teachers are no longer using canes and other forms of corporal punishment? For some teachers, the abolition of corporal punishment means they and other school authorities can do nothing about indiscipline, making students hold authorities hostage with their acts that break school rules. Most students lack the willingness or enthusiasm to learn, and such students will not conform to school regulations since there is no deterrent punishment. This is likely to mislead other students.
Counseling in our secondary schools can play a critical role in our collective effort toward instilling the highest moral values in our learners. Speaking to the conscience of students is key, but this is not going to be easy, as today’s learners have been introduced to the global world through the internet. Gone are the days when all a student knew was one radio station and one TV station, without access to the global world via the internet. Today, all these have changed. This means that what was accepted as a form of disciplining students or correcting them in the past three decades will not work today.
It also means that new methods of correcting students should evolve, and the Ghana Education Service must be involved in transferring the best and most appropriate methods of correcting learners to teachers in schools and classrooms. Our colleges of education also need to get abreast with new ways of ensuring discipline in schools. Having discipline as a course rather than a topic in our colleges of education will go a long way to extensively explore the subject before teachers under training graduate.
From the look of things, indiscipline is winning under Free SHS, not only because learners have become wayward, but also because teachers have not been intentionally empowered with the needed practical skills, knowledge, and tips to deal with issues of indiscipline as and when they arise. Discipline is a collective responsibility of schools, teachers, parents, students, and the community. The collective effort must lead to the creation of a conducive and protective learning environment for the children to learn.
Indiscipline is winning under Free SHS and even at the basic school. Take the scenario below as a case study and a proof of this.
The girl child, for instance, is not deterred from getting pregnant, and the worst part is that they are allowed to stay in school with their pregnancy, deliver the child, leave school, and come back six months later, leaving the child with a parent. Since she didn’t learn from her mistakes, she may come back and repeat the same thing, with no real deterrent punishment for these students.
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But the fact that teachers can no longer apply even minimal force to make the children conform to school regulations means there is no room for any form of corporal punishment. This situation requires us to rethink how discipline is enforced and how we can better equip educators to handle indiscipline effectively.
This article on indiscipline is winning under Free SHS is to spark a debate following the death of the O’Reilly SHS student.
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