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Students, too, deserve a considerate hearing
2008-05-14 09:52:18
By Edit
The causes and consequences of conflicts in institutions of learning have been the subject of countless seminars, workshops, meetings and conferences around the world.
Admittedly, the distinguished educationists, sociologists, criminologists and other experts deliberating on the matter have not always reached some consensus. Still, their analysis has often been so exhaustive that many find it surprising that the problem has kept recurring.
Tanzania has initiated or hosted some of the functions at which the whys and wherefores of those conflicts have been discussed.
In the main, the idea has been to come up with a magic wand with which to ensure that differences of opinion in our schools, colleges and universities were tackled at source and therefore nipped in the bud.
But things have seldom gone to plan and skirmishes have continued to plague our institutions of higher learning - at times growing into a whirlwind that has swept through primary and secondary schools as well as vocational training centres.
There has rarely been uniformity in the magnitude or scale of the problem differs; it has always differed from spot to spot and from occasion to occasion.
The scenario is much similar with regard to the sparks that have been finally igniting the fire we have kept witnessing.
The factors many people have been most fond of blaming for the trouble have been in the form of complaints by students over things like food quality and supply, and lecturers, tutors or teachers habitually skipping classes without notice or reasonable cause.
Students have also expressed reservations over the setting, handling, marking and grading of examinations and coursework alongside plain failure by some lecturers, tutors and teachers to deliver in line with their respective syllabi.
The list is much longer.
It has been years of diagnosis and one would have hoped that long-lasting solutions would have long been found, yet there has been little of the sort.
Could it perhaps be that our performance has been matchless only in that we have identified the enemy but we have thereafter become scared stiff and been thrown off-balance?
Or is it that we have picked on the wrong factors and started working on them, leaving the real causes of our trials and tribulations untouched?
For instance, some of our public primary and secondary schools have too few teachers for comfort, some are without science or language laboratories, and in some teachers` attendance is sporadic and unpredictable and even an averagely decent meal is a remote dream.
The people know it when the government runs on a shoestring and when it is sheer lazy thinking, poor planning, and lack of imagination, foresight or accountability that drive our public institutions of learning to near-collapse or starvation point.
When that is the case and students make noises about it, we must consider giving them the benefit of the doubt and work on their grievances.
Ignoring them without as much as a thought would be the wrong way to move - and could trigger bigger trouble.
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