adminNhamo Muchagumisa
THE demand for academic and professional qualifications has phenomenally increased in Zimbabwe since the turn of the century. Everywhere, people are either trying to improve their academic qualifications or their intellectual prospects. Those who have passed the academic barrier proceed to pursue professional qualifications.
The need to improve intellectual prospects has seen most teenagers spending most of their active time with the teacher.
The modern urban student no longer goes to only one school. A child formally registered with a mainstream school patronises a private college after normal school hours for expert assistance in his or her weak areas. Many parents are more than willing to pay this tutor whose services complement those offered at the mainstream school.
Parents and guardians, however, need to be warned of the danger of ofloading their children into the hands of the teacher. Whether your child goes to a conventional school or a registered college the risk of being dumped into the hands of the teacher stalks him or her.
Many people still bemoan the collapse of the extended family unit and yet something more disastrous is looming – the collapse of the nuclear family!
The role of the nuclear family as a socialising agent is slowly waning and may face its demise in the not so distant future if parents are not prudent enough to restore this essential function of the family.
Due to the current economic environment most parents may spend the whole day chasing the elusive US dollar while the child is at school. The juvenile arrives back home around 7pm after extra lessons. The tired parents return home long after that.
The exhausted parents have little or no time with their children and even fail to spare a moment to look at their children’s work. What if the teenager has skipped the private lesson (s) to pursue something else?
It is my humble word of advice that, no matter how great the odds are, parents need time with their children. They need to listen to their experiences, a way of closing the generation gap, creating an opportunity to rebuke, censure, admonish or reward.
While the school is another socialising agent and the school authorities act in locoparentis, the home has a longer lasting effect on the child’s social, moral and emotional aspect.
Authorities running boarding schools must be commended for setting aside one Saturday or Sunday per month for parental visits, but the parents still need to make use of the school holidays to spend more time with their children.
Some parents send their children for holiday lessons, not only because they want to enhance their intellectual fortunes, but also because they feel that if they leave their children at home while they go to work, they may end up pursing dangerous agendas. This is not a misplaced fear though, because today’s youngsters are frighteningly adventurous.
The trick of the matter is, however, that, teachers conducting holiday lessons specialise in preparing their clients for the summative examination at the end of their courses and have very little time to address social and moral issues.
Parents do not only need to talk to their children and listen to them, they also need to talk to each other and listen to each other about their children.
Regrettably, when parents talk to each other about their children, it is about their economic and intellectual needs, hardly about their behaviour or moral development unless a shocker brews up.
Nhamo Muchagumisa is a trained secondary school teacher and holds a degree in English and Communication Studies. He can be contacted on 0777 460 162
Online Reporter