Mobile phone abuse runs rife

 Inter-school rivalry is another reason why every school tries its best to get as many of their students into universities and colleges.  

Schools compete against each other to claim superiority over their rivals based on how many of the school leavers could gain access to higher education places.  

Students are responsible for falsifying their transcripts, grades or certificates  because they ‘see’ that getting a better grade will guarantee a study place in higher education institutions or even securing odd jobs.

To falsify their academic transcripts and certificate it requires the support and cooperation of staff in the Measurement Services Branch who accept monetary inducements in order to provide the mark scheme or the answer sheet, including copies of the exam questions.  

The DoE-sanctioned 2012 internal report is damning. There were strong evidence to suggest that falsifying of transcripts and certificates were practised.  

There is a case where a student offered K100 to MSB staff to have his grades on his Grade 10 Certificate ‘upgraded’ in order for him to continue his education.  

There were cases in which similar practice to upgrade certificates were common.

Marking schemes or answer sheets are smuggled out before the exam dates. The mark schemes and answer sheets are often reported to be sold on the streets in the days leading to the exam week.   

In 2013, I actually received a Maths B Exam answer sheet through my mobile phone from a colleague who had received it earlier to confirm that answer sheets are now sent widely through mobile phones.  

This goes to show that the answer sheet can be easily divulged to anyone quite easily. Exam cheating highlighted earlier may never be eliminated as the practice is deeply entrenched.

Mobile phone abuses

Mobile phones are widely available in Papua New Guinea. Nearly every student in an urban school has a mobile phone.  

A very good percentage of students in rural setting have the benefit of mobile phones, which is dependent on the network coverage in their localities.  

Many students from well-to-do families have the high end of the mobile phone range (3G or 4G capacity). Mobile phones with such capacities enable students to take pictures and post them on Facebook and other social media outlets.  

Students are spending more time on mobile phones accessing social media outlets than any other activity in school and out of school.  

Spending less time on academic areas has serious consequences on the exam results. 

Mobile phone uses and abuses are not just assumptions but real issues affecting students attitude to learning and their general behaviour in more ways than we can enumerate.  

For example, the use of mobile phone by student cult group members to call for reinforcements in the inter-school fights between two NCD schools in 2012 and 2013 is a clear example of mobile phone abuse. The use of mobile phones to access pornographic sites and transmitting pornographic materials (photos and videos) to friends is common among students with the right gadget.  

Students are now freely using explicit terminologies, which were not commonly used by their age groups of the past.  

Swearing using the f-word in every second or third word in a poorly constructed sentence is evidence of a generation of students with warped mind displaying anti-social behaviours.  

We know the adage ‘practice makes perfect’ and the more f-word and related foul language is practiced then that behaviour is already perfected to be applied in adult life.  

What type of society will we have with such people? Most certainly it won’t be smart, wise, fair, healthy and happy society that the PNG Vision 2050 envisions.     

Students use mobile phones to ‘bully’ other students such as threatening, swearing or harassing. Similarly, mobile phones are used to date their boyfriends or girlfriends, which eventually end up in binge-drinking and engaging in premarital sex.  

A UNFA report in 2013 stated that five in every 100 teenage (school ages) girls fall pregnant and that is one of the many reasons why girls drop out of school, thus affect enrolment ratios and completion rates in PNG. 

Sexting (texting obscenities) is another new terminology entering our vocabulary. Sexting can offend the recipient if the content is of sexual nature and the recipient is not a consenting adult. 

Sexting is another form of bullying in the school. The psychological impact of sexting can offend the young recipient in more negative ways than good and have unnecessary anxiety on how they relate to other adults.

However, the positive benefits of using mobile phones are many but yet to be explored and used to its maximum effect in education.  

For example, use of mobile phone to deliver lesson plans to elementary school teachers in selected trial schools in PNG showed positive results in improving early grade reading compared to those who didn’t receive such lesson plans through the mobile phones.  

Illicit drug and alcohol consumption

Consumption of illicit drugs and alcohol are not uncommon in our schools. Where cult groups exist, consumption of illicit drugs like marijuana and homebrew (known by many names in different places) like ‘white soup’ are consumed.   

Often as part of the cult group activities with both boys and girls involved freely exchanging illicit substances, sex, and rituals.  

These activities end in teenage pregnancies and poor academic performances resulting in dropping out of school and causing social disorder in the school as well as the community at large.

We know students not only fight against each other or against students of other schools but against the public at large by destroying public properties and harassing innocent individuals as a result of cult activity related.  

It has been reported that a male student in a primary school assaulted a primary school teacher. This is likely to continue if over-age students are allowed to enrol in a class with younger students because of the free education madness.  

We know that male teachers have been reported to impregnate female students.  

Such a conduct and betrayal of trust entrusted upon the teacher should be addressed by applying the Teachers’ Code of Ethics to discipline the teacher concerned.  

In another story, female students were involved in producing pornographic videos with prominent male partners.  

Such videos were on high demand on the street market. All these indicate social disorder, declining moral standard, breakdown in accepted social values and behaviours, and disintegration of a people.  

Schools are where we are supposed to inculcate our value system but we have demonstrated that we can’t manage our schools as they are now becoming a breeding ground for developing anti-social behaviours.

Of course there are other illegal practices that are of common knowledge such as: stealing, graffiti, and swearing, which are adequately covered under existing school rules and are within the control of the school authorities to manage.

• Continued tomorrow