News
Galle attack: Focus on breakdown of school discipline
View(s):Major questions about student misbehaviour and the causes for it have arisen after the shocking case where a student is alleged to have attacked a vice-principal with a cricket stump.
In the incident at Galle’s Siri Dhamma Vidyalaya, a 17 year old boy in Grade 12 is alleged to have hit the vice-principal with a stump causing serious head injuries. This has placed many teachers in a dilemma as to how they should discipline students.
Vice Principal Indika Manoj suffered head injuries and fell with his spectacles shattered when the student allegedly attacked him. He was warded in the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital for three days and had eight sutures to his head.
Reports say the vice principal had seen the boy in the corridor heading to his office and had asked what he was doing outside the classroom.
Then, seeing the boy’s spiky hair and plastic bangles, the vice principal had advised the boy to remove the bangles. The boy did so and the vice principal advised him to take a haircut.
However, reports say an argument had erupted and the boy had allegedly scolded the vice principal. A teacher who casually passed that way had heard the argument, intervened and told the boy to stop the argument.
The boy had shown no remorse but had had gone back to the classroom, threatening to take revenge.
The vice principal said he had gone back to his office and had thought that the episode was over. But a few minutes later, someone hit him on his head from behind.
“I was hit twice with a pole and I fell in shock, breaking my pair of glasses,” he said.
Later he was to learn that the angry boy had picked up a stump lying in the classroom and had come from behind and attacked him.
The boy had come in to the advanced level section only this year. Investigation into his family background revealed that his father is involved in selling illicit liquor and the mother is a labourer.
The police who took a statement from the vice principal had warned the boy and let him go.
The vice principal, a father of two school-going children, said he was fortunate to have survived the blow, which could have been fatal.
He said that in a school where children from all sorts of family backgrounds came together, it was difficult to maintain discipline. Violent and unruly children could pose a threat to other students also.
“We work hard to get good results for the school but such behavior tarnishes the school’s image,” the vice principal said.
He called on the Government to work out a process whereby unruly or violent students are identified and rehabilitated.
Meanwhile the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) blamed the Education Ministry for the malady. Its General Secretary, Joseph Stalin said he believed such violent trends had emerged in schools after corporal punishment was stopped.
He said he was not for corporal punishment, but the Government should find alternative ways to discipline students. For this purpose, every school should have trained counsellors to guide the students.
The Sri Lanka National Principal Union President, Parakrama Weerasinghe, said parents were mainly responsible for the present state of affairs. “We have failed to inculcate our rich values in our children,” he said
“Respecting our parents, grandparents, teachers and elders has been our norm, but today’s children have no such values instilled in them and are disrespectful to elders and teachers,” he lamented.
The Sri Lanka Independent Teachers’ Union believes the primary cause for such behavior among students is the lack of recreational activities.
Its General secretary Wasantha Handapangoda said that today’s parents tax children too much, pushing them to get good grades in their studies and they hardly had time for recreational activities.
This had made them bored and rebellious, she said.
According to her, two other contributory causes are television and radio which keep them entertained for hours daily, not allowing them to think on their own or to get involved in life development skills.
She called on teachers to spend quality time with students to assess abilities and behaviour so as to identify problematic children who need special help.
She said most teachers were most of the time involved in paper work but neglected the students. “One such thing is the distribution of uniform vouchers to students which has consumed several hours of their quality time,” she added.