‘Need to change prefect system’

STUDENT prefects should be reminded of their roles as mentors to younger students.

While speaking at the TISI Sangam heads of schools and school Managers seminar in Lautoka over the weekend, University of the South Pacific

School of Social Sciences experimental psychology lecturer Dr Annie Crookes explained the need to change Fiji’s prefects system.

“Probably originally the prefects system and the idea of older students having interactions with younger students was supposed to be for support, but it gets lost,” she said.

“A lot of social psychology tells us that if you give people positions of power or authority without any other provisions of what that looks like, they will roll with that and it can lead to aggression.”

She said for young students, being given the power to control other students could lead to more social issues.

“So I think it is important to go back to what leadership was originally meant to be about.

“I really liked what someone from the indigenous Fijian community said about the idea of chiefs and that they were originally meant to be in service to the community, not in charge of the community and I really liked that idea.

“So if that means getting rid of the word prefect and use a more appropriate word like mentor or buddy then that is what we need to do. We are rewarding them by giving them that position, but we need to tell them that your job is in service to the younger students and not to control them or discipline them.”