Stop student barbarism

They are places of learning, period. The moment the desire for luxury and the adult life are mixed with the learning process, we have a very big problem like the one we recently read about in The Manica Post. Such an act of barbarism is condemned in the strongest terms, more so if you take a closer look at the cause of these costly disturbances at the school.

While other reasons have been given, the main cause is said to be failure to watch World Cup soccer matches, goodness me!
For the misinformed students, failing to watch a soccer match was such a big ‘‘abuse’’ of their ‘‘rights’’ that they found it ‘‘justified’’ to vent their misplaced anger on the same facilities and infrastructure crucial for their day-to-day learning.

Now if that is their mindset, they need re-orientation.
For their own information watching a soccer match, World Cup or not, is not a right recognised by law both locally and internationally, and it is the discretion of the school authorities to afford them an opportunity to do so and apparently it is reported that they had been allowed to do so but the same students could not agree among themselves on the issue of the venue which then resulted in the authorities deciding to cancel the whole thing.

If this is exactly what transpired, then the authorities are also partly to blame because they allowed the situation to get out of hand by not decisively dealing with the issue of where the match was supposed to be watched.

Leadership entails making critical decisions and at times making critical decisions for those who cannot make them or are not able to make them and in this case it was the students.

What the students need to be reminded is that the same World Cup they were fighting to watch is as a result of soccer players who worked hard under very difficult conditions to achieve this success of at least appearing at these finals not to even mention the issue of winning the trophy.

Some of the players who lacked discipline were even dropped from their teams and one good example is Sam Nasir of France who despite his talent could not make it to the finals.

So if our students ever dream of excelling in life then they need to know that discipline and focus are key and without these they are just but wasting their time, their parent’s moneys and the State’s resources.

The other reason mentioned for this violence was that of the confiscation of cellphones and the charges for reclaiming them.
Now before we even talk about their cellphones being confiscated, the students are not even supposed to have them in the first place.
If taking a cellphone to school is one of the ‘‘rights’’ they are complaining about, this line of thought needs to be corrected too.

In the event that these naughty students manage to smuggle the cellphones into school premises, the moment school authorities discover them, then surely they should confiscate them, yet what I am not sure about now is the issue of charges for their return.

For boarding schools, I thought it would make sense only to return the phones at the end of the school term or to hand them over to the parents of the students and I think this should also apply even today in schools because the moment schools charge exorbitant penalties for the return of the phones, it creates another problem ranging from students spending money intended for other important issues or even stealing from each other or anger building up because they feel they are being exploited and when this bottled anger erupts one day, it will create the regrettable situation like the one that rocked Mutambara High School.

It is not unusual that in a learning institution students may not like certain staff members for reasons best known to them and even during our school days we also experienced the same, but it really never got out of hand like in this case.

I believe it is up to school authorities to maintain sound lines of communication with the students at the same time clearly spelling out the school rules.
Meanwhile, school authorities must also not allow student power to manipulate them as long as they are discharging their duties well.

The problem we have today is that of students who are jumping the gun by wanting to enjoy adult life.
They want to compete with adults in technology, cars and dressing and worse still in issues to do with sex.
Our dear students, first things first!

Don’t chew more than you can swallow.
Enjoy your youth days because when you become the adult you envy, then you will wish you were still young.
Such is life.

Ironically most of these skirmishes in schools are happening at church-run institutions where order and good behaviour are naturally expected to be the order of the day.

Mutambara is United Methodist Chuch-run, the same as Hartzell High School and Lydia Chimonyo, while St David’s Girls’ High is Anglican-run.
All these boarding schools have been in the news for the wrong reasons altogether.

Authorities, please take time to teach your students what children’s rights are so that they don’t engage in non-productive behaviour, thinking that they are advocating for their rights.

Shame Isaki is a political analyst, business management consultant and preacher. He can be contacted on 0773 018 662/0714 694 784 or email:[email protected].