Unsung heroes, heroines

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday October 6, 2025 06:00

Our school principals deserve more accolades and recognition than they currently receive.

The school climate has shifted drastically in the last few years to a point of rendering schools ungovernable. If it were not for the resoluteness and resilient spirit that our deeply caring and patriotic school principals continue to display in their execution of their roles, anarchy and chaos could be reigning supreme in our schools.

The 21st century is presenting the worst of circumstances under which school principals operate and conduct the business of teaching and learning. Immediately confronting the school principal is the issue of the reluctant students. The number of students who feel they should be elsewhere and not in school is growing. The attention of the 21st-century learner is divided. There are too many powerful distractions that students have to navigate. Some of the distractions have proven to be so overwhelmingly difficult for the poor students to successfully contend with. There is a silent competition between the home and school environments.

Every school day, some parents are confronted with the challenge of having to persuade children who may desire to stay at home and not go to school. Yes, this is an old problem, but it is assuming different dimensions. The reluctant students may find the home atmosphere much more appealing and less exacting than the rigid rules-driven school environment. Schools thrive on order and discipline. Without necessarily faulting parents and questioning their parenting skills, it would appear parents have relaxed their grip on children, creating a climate where children appear to be dictating terms. There is so much freedom and laissez-faire at home, ranging from unregulated television watching from dawn to late hours at night to late-night cooking, which children do when parents are deep in their sleep. After their action-packed and boisterous existence at home, fatigue takes its toll when the children are supposed to be ready for school. The children also find the transition from a laissez-faire home environment to an orderly school environment pretty difficult and cumbersome. The latest challenge is the scrapping of corporal punishment in public schools.

Well, there are compelling reasons for the abolition of corporal punishment. It is inhuman, and more often than not, it was abused. Besides, violence has become the order of the day, as evidenced by the surge of gender-based violence. It becomes very important at the foundation level to teach our children that the use of force is not acceptable as a means of resolving conflicts. Teaching children at the earliest opportunity about the value of leading by persuasion and dialogue is an important aspect of securing peace at the family and national levels. However, the abrupt scraping of corporal punishment without a ready-made package of alternative forms of punishment considered to be more humane, seriously dampened the morale of teachers and school principals. The children, too, are misinterpreting the scrapping of corporal punishment as a licence to behave as they please. There remains a critical job of developing a handbook of alternative forms of punishment to guide schools. School oversight institutions should be charged with the responsibility of developing the guidelines on punishment. The handbook will create room for uniformity and consistency across the board in the application of punishment. Leaving schools to their own devices can bring about the much-desired innovation. But too many variations in schools can send mixed signals to parents and stakeholders.

Consequently, it is important for oversight bodies to develop something uniform to fill the vacuum left by the stoppage of the usage of the cane in schools. The rod must be spared so that our children to adopt more civil ways of handling disputes. Our children need positive reinforcements both at home and in school. Openly rewarding those who adhere to school rules could encourage many students to comply with the set standards of behaviour. Government schools should take a leaf from their counterparts in the private sector. There is law and order in private schools. No student in a private school can be found in the swimming pool arena at the wrong time and without the expressed permission of the authorities.

That private schools continue to register better student learning outcomes without the use of corporal punishment should be an inspiration to public schools. Even without proper guidelines following the scraping of corporal punishment, many of our schools are still standing, and the business of teaching continues. This is due to the resilience and undying commitment of our school principals to the cause of transforming lives and improving learning outcomes. To these unsung heroes and heroines, credit must undoubtedly go.

Our societal ills are creeping into schools and making our schools less manageable. Drugs continue to find their way to schools, diverting in the process the attention of students away from the business of learning. Students involved in drugs have discipline issues, bullying fellow students, and disrespecting their teachers at the slightest provocation. Teachers are overloaded with responsibilities of not only managing the curriculum but also trying to fix broken students, adversely affected by misguided and callous adults who turn innocent students into a viable market for illegal drugs.

Other than dealing with the external adversities, school principals are now dealing with the scourge of no money.

There are liquidity challenges confronting school principals. The fresh and unprecedented challenge is calling for frugality and prioritisation, and more innovation to keep the schools above water. Gone are the days when schools were awash with money and when school principals did not have to worry about money. But today, principals should be schooled not only on matters of financial prudence but also on how to generate money for the continuing survival and prosperity of their institutions. One has noticed with a sense of pride that school principals are acquitting themselves well in the midst of adversity. Schools continue to hold prize-giving ceremonies without government funding. This has been going on for many years. That our unsung heroines and heroes managing schools continue to manage shoestring budgets while also successfully luring external private financiers of education endeavours can only demonstrate sound leadership and deep patriotism.