Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Young Generation: Quo Vadis?


"Secondary school pupils in Laamu Hithadhoo block teachers from classes," a headline in Jazeera Daily caught my attention yesterday. The paper quoted Hithadhoo School's Assistant Principal Mohammed Ibrahim saying that pupils have been barring teachers from entering classrooms since Tuesday.

According to Mohammed Ibrahim the students are agitating because they have had no economics teacher since last year. He believed parents were encouraging the students to strike. Most parents failed to turn up for a meeting called by Mohammed Ibrahim to discuss the issue.

From this incident it is obvious that the students and their parents believe their main problem is lack of an economics teacher. But perhaps a bigger issue is their lack of discipline. The parents' role is equally disappointing.

The school system of Maldives is bloated well beyond all available human and financial resources. And to top all this, we are faced with a national and a global economic crisis.

Is agitation the answer to all our problems? Is this the lesson we want to teach the younger generation?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember when teachers spank us with foot rulers that often makes rules and they put us in detention down on two knees and the stick down.

Anonymous said...

Children will imitate adults.

Anonymous said...

i think more then lack of respect there is something else behind such and such acts. lack of patience! i notice it where ever i go. a cafe', some would be shouting because getting what they ordered is slow, on the roads, honking honking honking even if a car or another vehicle blocks the road even for a second...etc.

somehow we have lost our patience in waiting i guess...

Anonymous said...

Don't blame children's rights law for all this. it is a good law. if fully implemented it will improve children.

Anonymous said...

We need to revise the regulation for students and include more corrective measures that have some impact on the students discipline. When I was schooling I still remember my teachers punishing us with "kueredhi fathigan'du", tying together and putting in the extreme heat of the sun. Those days the punitive measures used in schools were in fact very effective and had greatly benefited us all.

Anonymous said...

wat happnes in maldives is disgusting. when a kid just passes his or her 18 th year mark he or she become an adult with no prospect of education and future. Kids in their elary twenties should be groomed in factories called universities.

Anonymous said...

I don't suppose parents should either be blamed. Cause they also learnt to strike from their parents and so on. It has been in human history for ages and whether we like it or not we cant get rid of it from this world. Someone just mentioned in a comment that it is "lack of patience". I think if the issue has been up since last year, then very few can find it tolerant.
Why do we praise mahathma gandhi for striking for citizens rights, without violation and when it comes to students striking, without violence, then it is bad.
They even teach about mahathma gandhi in school. So i dont think this blame should go on to parents. Is it so hard to get an economics teacher?