<B>By Santosh Kumar Mahadeo, </B> <I>former director of Curriculum, Ministry of Education</I>

The Federation of Managers of Private Secondary Schools called three resource persons from India to deliberate on indiscipline in schooll. The chairperson for the day, Mr Harold Chan Lam, manager of London College, made an abrasive statement to the effect that this phenomenon strikes State schools more than private institutions. This paper analyses the causes of multiplying cases of indiscipline in State schools.

■ There is a total lack of discipline in the management of state schools. Very few rectors care for repeated absences of pupils from class and from school. Teachers rarely report such absences to the rector. If troubleshooters are absent, so much the better.

■ There is no framework for counselling to integrate refractory pupils within the system. Alcohol, drugs, tobacco have crawled into the heart of our schools without our school leaders knowing it. A vigilant rector knows from different sources or a grapevine the underworld created in less frequented spots of the school. A leader must have developed a network for privileged information.

■ Relationships between teachers and pupils are at the lowest ebb. Familiarity has gone to the extreme limit of pupils being able to express contempt for their teachers openly. Many young teachers without a dignified personality undergo the worst turpitudes in and out of class. Everybody is silent over this perversion of the teacher-pupil relationship which is the base for discipline. A great part of discipline lies in self-respecting discipleship.

d) The class condones many obviations from discipline, which ultimately inflate into gross behaviour-patterns. Enter a class casually and you will be shocked to find chairs and desks helter-skelter, morsels of food littering the floor, litter punctuating a space which should have been clean. Pupils are allowed to move from one point to another for no pedagogical reason. Paper pellets may be found flying when the teacher gives his back to the class. Class management is as its lowest.

■ Teaching does not engage the difficult learner. Lessons are dispensed in an atmosphere of indifference of both crucial partners ? pupil and teacher. The curriculum is implemented in a dry manner. It is important to observe the participative docility of the violent pupils whose interest has successfully been engaged by a teacher.

■ Schools are not able to reach a few parents because our school heads believe it is not their duty to leave their institutions to meet reluctant parents. We do not realise that parents become reluctant because they do not want to face the humiliation of being accused of the misdemeanour of their children. They themselves are the victims at home and they look up to the school for assistance. What happens if a school head hands over his responsibility back to impotent parents? In fact, it is high time heads went to meet such parents. Rectors must know how the pupils whose future also depends upon them live in their native environment. Leading a school is a vocation ? not just a job for which one receives a monthly salary.

■ The assistance of school psychologists must be sought on the basis of observed deviation in their least form. Hyperactive children betray symptoms earlier. Our psychologists intervene at a time when psychiatrists are needed - too late. Many cases of violence, self-abuse and rebellion start small but the teacher must be sensitive to them and seek help with parents early as a major preventive measure.

■ Rectors are left on their own till misbehaviour reaches a paroxysm and becomes serious enough to alarm the ministry or the police. From now on, it is my contention that discipline must be an inalienable part of everybody?s agenda at all times. The teacher, the usher, the rector, the zone directors, the ministry administrator must address this issue almost everyday. We seem to be waiting for an explosion to act. We must be attentive to the abnormal, however trivial it may be. This observation must be attended by a group of persons and not by teachers alone. Every school should have an observatory of cases of indiscipline and all information must become the object of analysis and redress-action.

■ We must inventory best practices of school, class and pupils? behaviour management and share them in a formal way. Whether we like it or not, we have become a nation of rivals locked in an endless competition. How many students of my school obtain six units? How many laureates can my school produce? Those schools that have resources have a birthright to success, whereas others wallow in a complacent mediocrity. We cannot admit this. Rectors must meet and discuss common problems. Successful leaders must help others reform. This sounds like a dream ? but this is how we can change.

■ Management develops in workers a sense of ownership to the organizations. Our schools are as foreign to the heart of the student as work is alienating to an average civil servant. A child who has developed a school identity has a personal pride that will protect the institution as a whole.

■ There is a lack of interpersonal dialogue in schools. Very often the Rector and the teacher became father-surrogates in a patriarchal system like ours. The pity is that we talk down to the youth. Rectors do not know the names of their students because they are too many. Teachers do not know the names of their students though they are few. There is no dialogue. No one has the time to give some quality space and quality time to those who need it. We are either shouting or complimenting ? we do not have time to converse.

<I>?Our schools are as foreign to the student?s heart as work is alienating to an average civil servant. A child who develops a school identity has a personal pride that protects the whole institution.?</I>

■ There will always be certain cases of incorrigible hooligans who do not carry this label by birth, but who have been victims of trauma or peer pressure. The big question for them is ? what can the school offer that can counterweigh 10 minutes of being high or a day of self-abandon? Schools have not thought about those who exclude themselves from the majority. Our institutions are unfortunately not made for the minority. We can protect the weak, the undecided ones from joining the disturbed ones. As a humanist, I do not believe anyone is beyond redemption. The challenge for a school leader lies in retrieving from despair those whom even parents have given up on. But then this sounds like a legend.

We are allowing the situation to degrade and we rely on classical punishment like detention, rustication and expulsion. We have adopted the ?rotten fish? attitude and have used lack-love methods. This article does not presume to be exhaustive for indiscipline involves, cut worst, only 10% of a school population. We can?t afford to allow anybody to spoil his life because of a few moments of ?high?. As pedagogues, we have a heavy moral responsibility.