Kapinga calls for sanity in schools

KENNETH KOBEDI
Correspondent | Friday June 6, 2008 00:00

He was speaking during this year's Teachers Day commemorations held under the theme: The teacher; turning education challenges into opportunities. Kapinga said it is always embarrassing whenever a teacher is arrested for serious criminal activities. He urged teachers to commit themselves and be held accountable for what takes place in their day-to-day lives as well as in the lives of the children under their care. He said teachers, especially those at secondary schools, are faced with many challenges including indiscipline, adding that gone are the days when teachers had all the liberty to crack the whip whenever they came across wayward pupils. Nowadays, he said, pupils engage in criminal activities, such as armed robberies, burglaries and gang rapes.

He said as law enforcement officers, police are disturbed by issues of deviance and juvenile delinquency, citing vandalism of classrooms and other school infrastructure, which has in the past cost government millions of Pula. Therefore, we must at all cost avoid our schools becoming crime and disorder hotspots due to their dilapidated condition. He added that recently there has been a huge uproar nationwide caused by incidents of vicious bullying among students in some schools, a behaviour that vividly demonstrated the levels of deviant behaviour and how it can adversely affect the learning environment. The deputy police chief said that lately there has been a disturbing trend whereby criminals target students, especially girls at their places of residence and at their school hostels where they either attack or rape them. In the past pupils and students have been victimised whilst walking to and from school, but for them to be attacked inside what should be their safe havens, is very much disconcerting. I therefore take this opportunity to plead with all of you to positively respond to our crime prevention message, he said.

Meanwhile, many teachers at the event expressed worry at government's tendency to appoint commissions to review employees' salaries, only to reject their recommendations. The commissions, whose recommendations were ignored, include the De Villiers and Tsa Badiri commissions of inquiry. The teachers said the recent Iqbal Ebrahim Commission of Inquiry observed that government labour force is under paid, compared to the private sector, parastatals and other countries in the SADC region. In light of this observation, they said the commission recommended a 30 percent salary hike for civil servants, which government rejected and recommended half instead.

One teacher, who preferred anonymity for fear of victimisation, said as a newcomer in the teaching profession, she has been a victim of both verbal and sexual abuse by some male students in her class at one of the community junior secondary schools in Maun. She decried that the fact that some of their students are her age-mates has a such a negative impact on their line of duty that they are demoralised because some the student are bullies.

Some have even gone to the extent of swearing at us in public and we are afraid to move freely because they target us even at weekends. I am personally calling on law enforcement officers and those in authority to help us stop this kind of behaviour, before the situation gets out of hand, she said