Elections and education

AMONG all the goodies on offer on the campaign trail was a conspicuous absence of any plan to effectively treat the issue of school violence. This issue has undoubtedly assumed alarming proportions given the glaring video evidence recently emanating from a secondary school in south-eastern Trinidad where teachers were the recipients of brutal physical attacks from students in the performance of their duties.

Unfortunately, these incidents are not isolated and have become commonplace, making teaching a high-risk job in many schools across the country. Where is the collective high-profile condemnation and outrage from politicians and the general citizenry for such egregious student behaviours?

Besides the vague promise to transform the education system on the one hand and the promised perpetuation of a dependency syndrome as the panacea for treating with inequity on the other, no one was daring enough to promise a comprehensive review of the existing suite of legislation governing the operation of schools.

This legal framework has gradually disempowered teachers and school officials from truly holding parents and their errant children accountable for their blatant disregard for the rule of law and the rights of others to teach and learn in a safe environment.

Clearly, the existing legal framework does not contain sufficient deterrence provisions to daunt the wanton level of indiscipline that now characterises many of our nation’s schools. On the contrary, parents and their children are not just empowered, but emboldened to vociferously challenge school rules and school officials, fully conscious that their actions can be carried out with impunity.

Verbal reprimand, the only tool teachers and principals have been left with when it comes to disciplining errant students, has been shown to convey no deterrent effect. Reformative and restorative discipline structures must be complimented with dissuasion provisions.

Through the fear of negative political repercussions, no one was brave enough to truly and decisively confront this issue of extreme school violence from a deterrent perspective. On the contrary, the consistent response from the various governments over the years has been to disempower and hamstring school officials from the singular standpoint of child and parental rights, without attendant responsibilities.

No thought is given for the rights of other children to learn in an environment free from the fear of verbal and physical violence. Worse yet, the right of teachers to teach without their physical safety being compromised by their very students is never even mentioned.

Rights exercised in a vacuum, without the concomitant responsibilities, have been chiefly responsible for the alarming breakdown in school discipline; a hard truth that the country must confront as a first step to effectively addressing school violence. To further compound the challenge is the entrenched mindset of entitlement and dependency consistently perpetuated by politicians, especially around election season.

We are now living in an era where teachers have to consider the repercussions, both legal and otherwise, to themselves before intervening in acts of student violence or even engaging in routine student discipline practices. Batting in your crease has now become the guiding principle for many of the nation's teachers; a sad development for a profession where caring for one’s charges is at the core of its practice.

Obviously, the existing school discipline matrices have been proven to be woefully inadequate to the challenge of keeping schools safe and secure for all. The time has probably come for the consideration of revamped legislation regarding the governance of schools; one that must return the power from the student back to the teacher.

Continued denial of the gravity of the social conundrum will only make more schools and the education system dysfunctional, compromising our country’s capacity to develop its human potential. It will continue to diminish our returns on educational investments and further entrench educational elitism.

It might come as a surprise to many politicians, but a large segment of our population has lost confidence in the capacity of many schools, both primary and secondary, to provide a safe and secure learning environment for their children. The disruptive capacity of a small minority, for whom free education holds little or no meaning, has been allowed to prevail unchecked for too long.

This lack of confidence is expressed in the anguish and disappointment articulated annually by both parents and children when SEA results are released. The call for strong and bold intervention is deafening. What is lacking is the political fortitude to act. The legal framework governing the operation of schools must innovate commensurate with our new social dynamic.

Over to our new government.