Students Indiscipline A Concern, Teachers Need Help, says A-G
Acting Prime Minister and AttorneyGeneral Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says school children’s indiscipline is a concern and teachers could not handle this issue alone.
Responding to Opposition Leader Ro Teimumu Kepa’s question, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum reiterated that discipline problems could also arise due to the environment that students operate or study in and their home situations.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the Ministry for Education was considering the development of a behaviour management policy because it was important to continue and develop the understanding and implementation of positive discipline as opposed to negative discipline.
He said Fiji lacked professional student counselors.
“I acknowledge the work of many teachers in Fiji who have taken on the responsibility of counseling even though they are not trained professionally,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
He said the ministry was struggling to provide professional counsellors. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum further stated that discipline was also in the hands of parents. “I have personally seen many times where the children come home in the evenings, the parents are there or disappear as they may go to nightclubs or maybe sitting and drinking grog with their friends and the children are actually neglected,” he said. “What are we doing as parents and as a community?
“I think there’s a tendency of the parents simply dumping in some instances their children with the teachers and expect them to turn them out into wonderful adults.” He added that the community needed to work together and tackle the issue because teachers could not handle this alone.