Why is violence allowed to fester in our school system?

Nov 27, 2016 News

---

By Sharmain Grainger

Violence is not a very far-removed characteristic from human nature. This is in light of the fact that human beings, much like animals, seem to have a knack for violence, of course some more than others.
Some may be constantly inclined to perpetrate acts of violence, but somehow possess what can be described as an ingrained ability to control their emotions which often drives the desire to be violent.
Violence can be demonstrated in many forms, but essentially, persons can be violent against themselves or others as well. There are some persons who have been known to be violent against animals even.
But as it relates to human beings, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”
Research shows too that globally, violence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.28 million people in 2013, up from 1.13 million in 1990. Of the deaths in 2013, roughly 842,000 were attributed to self-harm, 405,000 to interpersonal violence and 31,000 to collective violence and legal intervention.
The evidence certainly points to the fact that human beings are more inclined to harm themselves. This of course has long emphasized the need for increased mental health intervention.
This, however, does not mean that mental health intervention is not required to help address the instances that people are violent against each other.
There must be cause for concern when individuals, especially adults, can’t be rational enough to deal with issues they face without being violent. But looking to the health sector is certainly not the only available option.
It is however interesting that although some acts of violence that occur in our society are punishable by law, many do not even reach a domain of such intervention.
Perhaps for this reason, or because of the very fact that many do not give a thought to the possible outcome, violence prevails often unabated in our society.
Particularly worrying were recent reports from the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) that there has been an upsurge in the incidence of violence in the public school system. Not at all surprising is it when tempers flare among peers in a classroom and violent reactions result.
But when a student, angered by an instruction of a teacher, opts to launch an attack, this is certainly not a situation for a nation to take lightly.
It was revealed by the GTU that students have been the initiators of physical altercations with their teachers in the classroom, and in several of these cases, there has been little or no redress forthcoming.
Some students have even brought along family members to help “deal with” teachers while on the school premises.
Many of these complaints are reportedly brought to the attention of the GTU by teachers who constitute its membership. The GTU is tasked with representing in excess of 7,000 teachers within public schools nationwide.
While violence in the school system is not one that is remotely novel, it is understandably an immense bugbear to teachers and their ability to be effective educators.
No teacher should be looking over his or her shoulder while delivering the day’s lesson because a student was not receptive of an instruction or even punished for a misdemeanour.
This, however, is the disturbing case in some public schools. But this isn’t to say that there aren’t some teachers who are provocateurs. Many students have complained of excesses meted out by teachers too.
When asked about this recently, GTU President Mark Lyte claimed to have no knowledge of such occurrences. In fact he, without hesitation, insisted that “those are allegations. We have been speaking to our teachers and we are not aware that teachers are in the habit of injuring children. We know that in many cases some of those children come from home with their injuries and that is blamed on the teachers.”
Perhaps the GTU needs to give a closer look at some within its membership.
Just recently one of my colleagues spoke of an incident whereby one of her young relatives was nothing less than abused by a teacher. The reason that was allegedly given by the teacher was because the student didn’t cry like the others when flogged.
However, we must bear in mind that corporal punishment is not a thing of the past in the public school system and could still be administered with discretion of course, despite many arguments against it. Teachers simply can’t use this mechanism to be vindictive.
There are, however, many who are of the belief that if corporal punishment is to remain a staple in the school system, more efforts should be made to make parents and guardians of students more au fait with the process.
Maybe, just maybe, this is one area in which the Parent Teacher Associations have been failing.
The schooling of a child should be a collaborative effort between the school, parents and of course, the child.
This has long been touted as a key tactic to ensure that the delivery of education is effective. And in some cases the effective delivery of education may warrant some disciplinary measures; it certainly didn’t harm the older generation.
Perhaps if stakeholders’ collaboration was enforced, the issue of violence in the school system might not have been so pervasiveness and downright worrying.
So worrying it is that limited or lack of security at some schools has been called into question.
It was recently pointed by the GTU at a press conference that while some schools do have in place regular security guards, some are not capable, even physically, to ward off violent situations on school premises.
Addressing the capabilities of these security guards can lead to an employment issue, but this of course is a whole other matter.
The GTU is, however, calling on the Ministry of Education to urgently address the prevailing violence situation. Violence many not have engulfed the entire education system, but leaving a situation to fester cannot at all be the solution.
As stakeholders of education, the GTU should not have needed the media to help stress the need for the Ministry to address a school-based upsurge of violence; it should have long been addressed. This has left me wondering if there are even more systemic shortcomings within the education system than meets the eye.

---

---