School Unrest: Looking Beyond the Flames and Finding Lasting Solutions
Every time a school dormitory or a school goes up in flames, the immediate public reaction is usually outrage, condemnation and threats of expulsion. While accountability is necessary, reducing every incident of school unrest to mere indiscipline, risks overlooking deeper and more complex issues that continue to plague learning institutions.
If as a society, we are to meaningfully address the recurring wave of unrest in our schools, we must first understand that there is no single cause. Every incident has its own circumstances and the triggers are often more complex than they initially appear.
1. Indiscipline and Deliberate Acts of Disruption
One undeniable factor is indiscipline. There are a few learners who deliberately engage in acts of destruction, sometimes with the intention of disrupting learning or forcing school closures. In every school, there is usually a small group of learners who simply do not want to remain in school or who seek to disrupt normal operations.
For such students, causing unrest or destroying property becomes a means of forcing school closures or escaping an environment they no longer wish to be part of.
Ironically, the common response of threatening expulsion may not deter such individuals. If a student's objective is to leave school, expulsion becomes an incentive rather than a punishment. This raises important questions about whether our disciplinary approaches are achieving their intended objectives.
2. Academic Pressure and Mismanagement
Another major contributor is the immense pressure some schools place on learners, particularly examination candidates. It is not by coincidence that many school fires and unrest incidents occur during the second term, when academic pressure reaches its peak. In many learning institutions, students retire to bed late at night and wake up before dawn for continuous study sessions, all in pursuit of higher mean scores.
While academic excellence is desirable, concerns arise when school performance targets become more important than student well-being. Learners can find themselves subjected to exhausting routines, expensive remedial programmes and relentless pressure to improve school rankings. The result is a depressed student whose rage can be triggered by any form of provocation, resulting to riots or destruction of property.
The critical question is whether these pressures truly benefit the learner or primarily serve institutional interests. A school's mean score only enhances its reputation, that of the principal and the teachers. This in turn attracts more admissions and many parents bribing the school administration to get a vacancy for their children to learn in such schools.
Unfortunately, this should never be the case. Education should ultimately focus on the development and welfare of the child rather than institutional prestige alone.
3. Community and Political Interference
School unrest is not always born within school compounds. In some cases, tensions originate outside the institution. Community disagreements, clan politics, ethnic considerations or local power struggles can spill into schools. A school principal may face opposition not because of professional shortcomings but because of community dynamics beyond their control.
There are instances where political interference play a role... instances where local political leaders or influential figures openly or covertly undermine school administrators, creating divisions that eventually destabilise the learning environment.
In such situations, students often become victims rather than instigators. Their education is disrupted by conflicts they neither created nor fully understand. Warring groups might use such divisions to incite students into riots or use them to burn the schools or cause destructions.
4. Power Struggles Within Schools
Leadership disputes among staff members within the institution, resentment over appointments or resistance to administrative changes can create fertile ground for instability. A new principal attempting to reform an institution may encounter opposition from individuals who preferred previous systems.
Where entrenched practices such as indiscipline, examination malpractice, financial impropriety or other forms of misconduct exist, reform efforts can provoke significant resistance. Students may then be manipulated or influenced to participate in protests and unrest aimed at removing school leaders who threaten established interests.
5. External Manipulation of Learners
A closer examination of many violent incidents reveals that they are often not spontaneous actions involving entire student populations. Peaceful demonstrations usually occur openly. Students may protest about food shortages, lack of water or other grievances in a visible and organised manner.
Violent incidents, however, are frequently planned secretly by a small number of individuals. Sometimes learners are used by external actors pursuing their own agendas. In other cases, a few students initiate destructive actions while the majority become unwilling victims of the consequences.
This distinction is important because it challenges the assumption that entire schools are responsible whenever unrest occurs.
The Emotional Reactions and Blame Games
Whenever a dormitory burns or property is destroyed, emotions understandably run high. Parents are angry. School administrators demand action. Politicians call for harsh punishment. The public demands accountability.
The immediate response is often to blame students collectively and call for expulsions, suspensions or mass punishments. Yet such reactions rarely address the underlying causes. Students are often branded as criminals before investigations are completed. Entire schools acquire reputations for indiscipline even when only a handful of individuals were involved.
Meanwhile, the real victims are sometimes forgotten. Hundreds of learners may lose uniforms, books, bedding and personal belongings. Some come from families that struggle to afford basic necessities. For them, unrest brings not only disruption to learning but also significant financial hardship.
There are also concerns that some institutions have exploited unrest incidents to impose hefty fines on parents without sufficient transparency regarding how the money is collected, managed or utilised.
Why Every Case Must Be Investigated Separately
One of the greatest mistakes we make is assuming that all school unrest stems from the same causes. A school fire triggered by academic pressure is different from one caused by political interference. An incident linked to indiscipline differs from one rooted in leadership disputes or corruption.
For this reason, every case should be treated as unique. Investigations must go beyond identifying who lit the match and seek to understand why the conditions that allowed the incident to occur existed in the first place.
Only by establishing the root causes can authorities develop effective preventive measures.
Towards Lasting Solutions
The solution to school unrest is not simply harsher punishment. Where criminal actions lead to injuries, deaths or serious destruction, the law must take its course. Accountability remains essential.
However, where learners are involved in property destruction, automatic expulsion may not be the most effective response. Education is both a constitutional right and a social responsibility. Society cannot simply push troubled learners out of the education system and hope the problem disappears.
Instead, alternative institutions (eg approved schools) and rehabilitation programmes should be considered for learners who demonstrate an inability to function within conventional school environments. Such interventions would allow them to continue receiving education while addressing behavioural challenges.
Schools must also prioritise student welfare, reduce excessive academic pressure, strengthen counselling services and create channels through which grievances can be addressed before they escalate into unrest.
Equally important is insulating schools from political interference, leadership wrangles and external manipulation. Learning institutions should remain places of education, not battlegrounds for personal or political interests.
Ultimately, the goal should not merely be to identify who started a fire, but to understand what conditions made that fire possible. Until we address the deeper issues beneath the unrest, we will continue reacting to symptoms while the real problems remain unresolved.
The challenge before us is therefore not simply to punish those responsible, but to build school environments where unrest becomes far less likely to occur in the first place.
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