By Karo OGBINAKA
A news item in The Trumpet, Weekend, on March 26-27 caught my attention. It was the case of a 40-year-old housewife, Bola Joshua, who was sentenced to sweep the premises of Iju Ebiye High School for six months.
Her offence was invading her son’s school premises with thugs whose duty was to beat up the Principal and a teacher who may have disciplined her son in the said school. In delivering “a ruling, Magistrate Shotunde Shotayo ordered the convict to sweep the school from 8 am to 11 am every day for six months.”
The Magistrate also put supervisory mechanisms in place to ensure compliance. However, the punishment had an option of a fine.
“Shotayo gave Joshua an option to pay a fine of N30, 000 to be given to the principal and the teacher.” It is commendable that the victims – in this case, the Principal and Teacher – in this case, sought legal redress.
It common these days for parents and guardians to storm our schools with thugs to beat up teachers they perceived to have treated their wards or children unfairly.
This action is usually carried out in broad day light at peak periods in the schools to enable other pupils watch the action of shame by these so-called parents. In a society that is bedevilled with much more serious social problems such as kidnap cases, political violence, armed robbery, drug peddling and abuse, prostitution, cybercrimes, cultism, etc. teachers’ bullying may be seen as something too minor to be given attention. Schools are not set up for learning alone.
They are set up to inculcate good morals and values in our children, the learners. Schools are meant to promote the best of our African cultural ethos and mores. It is where society’s language, songs, art and culture are transmitted from the older generation to the younger ones.
It is within our school setting that sports can be acculturated. That pupils are issued testimonials by the schools they attended testifies to this role of schools in the upbringing of our children.
The importance of school testimonials is doubtful today in Nigeria. Perhaps this is one of the reasons teachers now resort to self help in dealing with the children under their watch since many believe that the testimonials they issue are not worth more than the paper on which they are signed.
No employer asks for school testimonial. Admissions into higher institutions are not based on the moral conduct of pupils. Many of schools today are centres of immorality.
A few of our schools are the organisers of examination cheating. They solicit for students under a marketing package of being “special centres” – a euphemism attesting to their being accredited examination cheating venues. How would one expect parents and pupils to hold in any esteem a testimonial issued by such schools?
On the other hand, parents are no longer moral models or icons for their children and wards. Open perpetuation of corruption, and indeed teaching children corruption, is now a given in our society. How does morality pay?
Unless our schools are put on the moral pedestrian they ought to be, our society will continue to degenerate in all its sectors. The society is as good as its primary and secondary school system.
This is where countries like Japan and the Scandinavian states got things right. The work values, etiquettes and life changing norms that are essential for these societies are inculcated into their children at their schools. The school and what it has to offer are an essential part of every fabric of a society.
Parents should know that it is both the society and they that can successfully bring up a child. It is a collective responsibility – of parents, religious organisations, community, youth leadership clubs, schools, etc. – for any children to reach his or her potentials.
It is obvious that ignorance plays a great role when a parent would go to his or her child school to act that way Mrs Joshua has done. This is shameful and must be condemned and avoided in future.
The relevant supervisory education bodies of government should act quickly before people get killed or injured in our schools. The chain of complaint system should be welllaid out.
Parents must be trained on what the school system represents – as not being solely knowledge-production factories, but also character moulders. Parents should also know how and where to lodge their complaints when aggrieved. This must be handled seriously by the relevant bodies.
The time has come for the State, employers and tertiary institutions to start asking for testimonials if they must engage people in our workplace and tertiary institutions.
This will correct the impression that testimonials issued by our schools are worthless. Many people occupying sensitive positions today have failed to deliver on their mandate not because they are unqualified to man such positions, but because they lack the moral standards demanded of them and the office they occupy.
The issue of teachers’ bullying has huge implications on our school system. Before it becomes damaging, it is imperative we device a workable ethics of discipline of pupils in our schools.
Parents, teachers and relevant education bodies can work this out. The practice of moving students from one school to another – especially when found wonton in their schools – should be checked.
This has weakened the discipline mechanism of our schools. Parents easily change the schools of their wards as if they are clothes in their wardrobes; given the desperate completion for pupils among schools.
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Perhaps, pupils should be given numbers by the state ministry of education. This code can be used to track them from one school to the other.
The current system whereby schools and their teachers are bullied with threats of withdrawal of children by parents, even when they are indebted to the schools, should be curtailed.
Character training must be part of our education and it should be made to count in the life of our wards.
