Indiscipline at school may be partly caused by parents. This is at least the feeling of many teachers who are in an awkward situation at the moment. While their role is supposed to be to educate pupils and make sure they abide by school discipline, many do not dare to do their job fully because they fear the interference of parents. In many cases, parents indeed try to prove their children right immediately without trying to understand why teachers complained about them or if the latter deserved the punishment they were given. And the laws and authorities protecting children sometimes make the teachers’ job even more complicated…

“Children are being overprotected by their parents’, regrets a head teacher of a primary school in the capital. However, she immediately makes it clear that she “understands parents fully. As a parent, it is perfectly normal that they do everything possible to protect their children”. But it obviously becomes more difficult for teachers to manage their classes as they have always been used to doing.

<B>Afraid to apply discipline</B>

Without ever justifying corporal punishment, Jugdish Lollbeeharry, deputy head master in a primary school, comments, “the situation has become more difficult for us and indiscipline has started to grow now that corporal punishment has been abolished”. But the problem is not just about corporal punishment – which in any case is definitely not the solution. “We no longer have the right to do anything. Just looking askance at one of the pupils may get the parents on your back soon afterwards”, says a teacher at the primary level.

“The Child Protection Unit has become our pet hate”, another head teacher adds. “If a child falls during the break or is beaten by one of his friends, some parents either come to school or make a complaint to the CPU stating that the child has been beaten by teachers”, comments Jugdish Lollbeeharry. “The concept of affective learning may imply that a teacher puts his or her hand on a pupil’s back or shoulder. This can sometimes be the subject of a complaint as well”, he adds.

In fact, teachers are starting to be afraid to apply discipline. And violence at school keeps on increasing both at the secondary and (more recently) at the primary level. Of course, it is difficult for the authorities like the CPU to differentiate between a genuine complaint and a case of exaggeration on the part of parents. They can’t afford to ignore a complaint, as their priority is the protection of children – and this should not be otherwise.

Cooperation for projects</B>

The solution may actually lie in a change in the parents’ behaviour. Of course, all parents are not alike and some of them respect the school’s regulations and interfere only if they feel there is a real problem with their children or if they are asked to do so by the school itself. This is why Parents-Teachers Associations (PTAs) have been set up.

The main objective of the PTA is actually to get the cooperation of parents in order to implement specific projects or try and find solutions to potential problems children may have at school, the overall aim being to improve the performance of the child. “It works pretty well in some schools where the PTA meets several times a year but in others, the association hardly meets even once a year”, says Jugdish Lollbeeharry. In fact, it works in schools where parents feel they are involved in their children’s education and show an interest in it.

Such participation of parents is highly welcomed in schools. Parents are indeed expected to show some interest in what their children are doing at school. It can have a positive impact on the children’s desire to learn and general motivation. It is clear that children will not be encouraged to learn if they feel their parents do not care about what they are doing at school. Likewise, absenteeism is certainly lower when parents are there to encourage their pupils to attend regularly – simply by explaining what benefits they will gain afterwards.

The main thing is to make parents aware of the limits. They need to know that they should have their say when they feel their pupils are being humiliated, unfairly punished or beaten by the teachers. They can of course volunteer some ideas to try and improve the environment in which their children are studying for instance. But they should never try to take the teachers’ place. Each of them has his or her own responsibility as a teacher and as a parent.

STRAIGHT ANSWERS – PREM SADDUL, PEDAGOGUE

<B>“School is like a fortress”</B>

■ 1. As a pedagogue, what should the role of parents be?</B>

As a former director of the Mauritius Institute of Education and former officer in charge of the Private Secondary Schools Authority, I had the opportunity to attend many PTA meetings. The development of a pupil should be done along two lines: instruction and education. While instruction should be provided by schools, education is a responsibility shared by schools and parents. Education includes complementary competences like affective, social and cultural skills. School can’t assume this function alone and collaboration with parents is largely recognised throughout the world as one of the main conditions for success. In fact, it should be an informative and interactive partnership to bring added value to the education a school offers.

■ <B>Are parents responsive to such a partnership?</B>

I have been able to witness the lack of interest of parents on several occasions. Very few of them act like co-educators and some even show aggressiveness and suspicion towards teachers. For many of them, school is like a fortress while it should be open.

■ <B>Who is responsible for this image of school?</B>

Both parents and teachers are responsible. There is a lack of dialogue between the two. Teachers and head teachers are always on the defensive while parents are aggressive or are simply not interested in talking with teachers at school. However, I must say there is a dialogue with teachers of private tuition – is this because they pay those teachers? There should be a healthy relationship between the three actors – the parent, the teacher and the pupil. But as the child grows up, there is less and less dialogue between teachers and parents and the latter’s role tends to be reduced. All schools should for instance organise regular visits by parents to the school as well as individual and group meetings between parents and teachers. This is necessary to establish a relationship based on trust, which will lead to a constructive partnership.

■ <B>But some teachers tend to say that the problem arises when parents constantly interfere and prevent them from doing their job…</B>

This is a real problem. Parents tend to side with their children and shift the blame on to teachers. But in the case of indiscipline for instance, parents should ask themselves the question – why do pupils act like that? A pupil spends only 25 % of his or her time at school and the rest at home. Education should be shared by both parents and school and parents are the ones to inculcate basic principles and values in their children.

Publicité