The solutions and recommendations

Solutions and Recommendations

Those who seek an end to school violence will not find it by travelling a single path, nor by looking at only one sector, such as schools. The problem has to be studied from a number of perspectives- familial, social, cultural, religious, communal, political, pedagogical, psychological, and financial. If prevention is better than cure, what are the preventive measures, if any; we can take to stop violence?

Family level

I believe that the first thing that we should do is to strengthen the relations within the family. We should not expect peace outside if we do not have peace inside. Parents should find time to devote to their children daily. Children should feel wanted and should be taught values. For instance: To respect the other and to place a high premium on such values as love, sharing, helping, politeness, courtesy. As it is said “education starts in the womb and ends in the tomb”. Values are caught and not taught, therefore parents should be “role setters” and should refrain talking like Jesus and acting like Judas. The home is the best place to start the beginning of a child’s life. Indeed children mimic what they see and their greatest influences are the adults around them. Therefore parents can do a fundamental task in moulding their children’s attitudes as supported by some of our parents’ in the interview.

Parents should establish some sort of trust between themselves and their children. It is saddening that most parents nowadays shirk from their responsibilities and leave everything to the school.

School level

Students’ contribution

Students have very important contributions to make in solving school violence. They want to increase everyone’s awareness of the problems in schools. Currently, they believe that adults are clueless about the realities of school life. From my findings, pre-vocational students and parents whose wards attend pre-vocational school suggest that they should be put in a school apart for them and that they should be separated from the mainstream, mainly because they face exclusion, not only from mainstream students but teachers also, and bullying. I strongly believe that if these two streams are separated this may lead to a decrease in school violence.

I would also suggest that students should be involved in safety planning in schools. By this, I mean that students from every level of achievement have something to offer and that without their inclusion; an important piece of the puzzle is missing. It is clear that students from high- achieving groups have a very different school experience than the lower-achieving students in the same school and everyone has a different experience of school violence. Therefore, I suggest that it is very important to heed the words of students to know what is going on and teachers should ask students.

Full time psychologist and social worker in schools

Our education system does cater for psychologists and social workers in schools, but not on a permanent and full time basis but only for students who have problems. I suggest that this should be changed and especially in pre-vocational streams, there should be a full time psychologist and social worker to work with these children on a daily basis to know about the different problems they encounter at school, at home and in their communities. This is in fact linked to the point that I have mentioned above. Teachers also play a major role in this as by being in constant contact with the student, they are the first one to identify the problems with the students. After having identified the problem, the child is referred to the school social worker who will enquire on the child’s parents and the environment he/she lives in.

The social worker then has to prepare a report on the child and gives special attention to enabling the child’s parents to be heard on the matter and to be admitted as equal educational partners in the educational planning activities of the child. Then the linkage can be made whether the student suffers from a social problem or not. The social worker then with the support of the parents can refer the child to another professional which can be the psychologist depending on the problem. So, all this shows that is compulsory to have both a social worker and a psychologist working hand in hand.

Another crucial role of the social worker is that of a counselor whereby he has the responsibility of organizing pastoral care and ensure that pupils can easily cope with anxiety provoking situations and this can be very useful in dealing with some problems that pre-voc students encounter. Also, the application of counseling skills by the social workers facilitates the interaction among teachers and hence the quality of human relationship existing in the school.

More supervision

What is also important is that more supervision is needed by school personnel to curb school violence. This means that supervision should not be restricted to the classroom only, but outside the classroom also and in places like: Bus-stop, schools yard, restrooms and the corridors of the school. School violence tend to occur in these places also as students know that they are not supervised. Moreover, there should also be the introduction of cameras in schools where perpetrators of school violence can be easily identified.

From a result centered education to a child centered education

Almost everything a child does at school is result centered. Teachers do not ask children what they would like to do and guide them accordingly. What we need is an education which is child-centered and where the student has a choice and a say in what he/she wants to do and not simply be forced to do this and that. In such a system where the child feels that he/she is barely a tolerated customer and that the school is not his/her school but belongs to the government, to the rector and whereas for their part, they have no stake at all in the institution, it is only natural that the student will vent his frustration against the school.

Therefore, I would suggest having a child centered education where the student has a say and a contribution to the institution and feels a part of the family. Hence, what does a child centered school produce? It produces people who feel responsible for their own school, for its appearance, the state of its furniture, books, toilets, pupil/teacher relationships. These kids take pride in their schools and will try to improve it in all ways. And if you can have a look at the deplorable conditions of toilets, the library and the classrooms of the pre-vocational students in the state secondary schools, it is really shocking. Regarding this, I will continue the explanation in the “Good infrastructure part”.

Government level

Code of conduct

The Ministry of Education should review the code of conduct of. I suggest that a new concept of code of conduct should be introduced where school rules and punishments are clearly explained and where importance is laid on the type of outfit students wear, the accessories they deck themselves with and the king of “look” they give themselves while coming to schools. Dress regulations should indeed be dealt with severely as from the findings we find that parent and teachers say that the kind of accessories adolescents wear to go to school are quite delinquent in the appearance. Periodical review of these regulations for appropriateness, effectiveness and completeness is very important. Students may have the rules explained to them during assemblies or in a classroom to be sure they understand the purpose of the rules, the parameters of acceptable behavior and the consequences of infractions.

Better infrastructure

A good infrastructure is very important. Respect to students is demonstrated through the availability of good facilities and resources, such as laboratories, computer rooms, and sophisticated playgrounds. All these things mentioned above are lacking in some pre-vocational streams as they share the school with the mainstream as has been found in the findings that where there is a lack of good infrastructure it leads to conflict.

Separation of mainstream and pre-vocational stream

So, to come to the point above, I firmly believe that the Ministry of Education should separate the streams and accommodate the pre-vocational students in a school for themselves with a good infrastructure. I assert that this will produce many positive results as:

1. This will reduce the exclusion that the pre-voc students were facing when being with the mainstream students and hence it will lead to a decrease in violence.
2. Pre-vocational students will feel free at any time to do any activities they want in their school and they will not have to wait when the mainstream to be over with their activities to practice theirs as we encountered in one of the findings. Hence, where earlier they felt suffocated and rebelled, if they given a school of their own they will feel free and again this will lead to a reduction in school violence.
3. If they are given a good infrastructure be it in terms of library facilities, sport facilities, playgrounds and so on, they will feel valued, loved and cared for. So, they will love to be at school. Furthermore, for a child from a poor background and defavorised environment, the school may represent an asset which he/she lacks at home. The school becomes a “luxury” for him/her for the many facilities he getting. This may definitely encourage a child in his studies.

Media control

While dealing with the issue of school violence, the media should undoubtedly be considered. As has been encountered in the findings where people see that some films have really a negative influence on children. So, what should the government do?

It is of utmost responsibility to the government to ban some films from the market and start raising campaigns of awareness on the impact of violent films on children to educate the population. The government should seek the help of experts in communication to devise ways to present TV programmes or magazine/ newspaper articles in such a way so as to condemn the violence projected. Films depicting violence should not be broadcasted at peak hours when children are most likely to be in front of the TV. Parents should also have a control in regard the types of movies or programmes their children are watching. Very often when children have finished watching a violent film their play becomes violent too and they reproduce that at school. Instead, Programmes on radio and television highlighting the disastrous effects of violence on society should be encouraged for broadcast.