MUTINDIRA: Adults should become better role models

The contagious turmoil that was experienced by some secondary schools has ignited a debate on the management of education. It has made some school managers wish to go on retirement or change careers due to the unending demands and unrealistic expectations by students. Having coerced the MoE to allow for a mid-term break, some students now want to go home before completing exams to end the term.

With our characteristic norm of knee-jerk reactions, some of the proposed solutions will either be counterproductive or have a short shelf life. There are several proposals to tackle the anxiety and restlessness, one of them being abolishing boarding schools.

However, we need to get to the root cause of the problem and exterminate it completely. To start with, let us understand that children will not do what they are told but will copy with utmost dexterity what they see adults do.

Our children have seen a trend in working adults who fail to complete assignments on time despite being provided with tools and resources. The same will ask for more time to do the project without any consideration to clients missing the services as a result of laziness and ineptitude.

Similarly, students are refusing to do assignments despite parents paying school fees and the teachers’ willingness to teach. Sometimes they execute tasks haphazardly to hoodwink the teacher and not necessarily to understand the concept or key learning areas.

The majority of the learners are feeling like they are missing fun and are obsessed with going home.

Projects done in a shoddy manner with poor workmanship and wastage of resources have become the order of the day, with nobody getting punished. The youngsters are watching this state of affairs and are getting disillusioned. The series of wrongs going unpunished has repeated itself to the nth number and our children are executing the script so fast and furious making us think they are from Mars.

When fraud is committed within an organisation, the filling and accounts office sometimes gets burnt mysteriously to eliminate evidence. In the same way students are burning dormitories so there will be no place to sleep and their stay in school is not tenable.

Youngsters become discouraged when the same adults committing enormous evils expect upright behaviour from them. There is a mismatch between what grown-ups are telling students and what children see every day in society. The mirror of our society shows a rotten picture that is paradoxically glorified and emulated.

We have perfected the blame game and sideshows and nobody is taking responsibility. Students are blaming the crumbled syllabus, strict school management and the Ministry of Education. Society is blaming the students wholesomely, even those who knew nothing about the strikes or arsonist activities.

Since children are formed by society, they have seen enough of those who committed fraud, violence, corruption and embezzlement going unpunished. They know some in their neighbourhood who got into well-paying jobs or government tenders through dubious means and have seen them displaying their ill-gotten wealth.

Young adults will not hesitate to steal, pilfer or use violence to get windfalls just to show how tough they are. In the present scenario, role modelling for our youngsters is sadly lacking adding to the confusion. These learners are now charting their own behaviour model of being unruly, violent and hedonistic.

If the current crop of parents were the students today, they would do crazy things enough to make recent student behaviour a kid play! However, our schools can become a breeding ground for diligent and patriotic citizenry only when adults become enviable role models.