RKS TO BE CLOSED FOR ONE WEEK FOLLOWING CONCERNS FOR STUDENT SAFETY
Poate Rainima Bula
Students all over Fiji should not be encouraged to stage any protest against teachers or school officials. Most of these protests are being organised by senior boys and prefects of those schools.They are there to study and not to protest against those who are assigned to teach and look after them.
If we allow them to protest at any time they want against any school officials they are against, we are giving them the green light to do whatever they want to do in the school premises. We are empowering them in a very wrong way. This is a very serious issue that must be taken seriously and be dealt with cautiously too.
There are related issues that are linked to these, such as beatings and victimization of younger students by prefects and the senior ones. It does not only happen to junior students but it happens as well to any known whistle-blower that reports any senior boys or prefects in doing wrong things in school compounds. Terrorizing of teachers by the senior boys and prefects in the school premises. Most of these senior boys and prefects are mobilizing themselves to fight for their course, even if it is wrong and most cases could be life threatening. Respective schools in Fiji must identify those senior prefects and individuals who have behaved in such a way, and have made the school learning environment not conducive for other students. After identifying them, then they should be taken to task and punished severely. Or even expelled from the school. Those who are expelled from those schools must not be re-absorbed into the schools to be a deterrent measure for such behavior.