Students’ behaviour a public concern

Editorial

TWO secondary school students are in trouble with the law over two different incidents.
In Goroka, a grade 10 student was fined K1000 or in default 12 months’ imprisonment after being found guilty of damaging the windscreen of a vehicle.
The Goroka district court heard he did that while under the influence of alcohol.
On Madang, a grade 9 girl has been charged with wounding her classmate in the school ground.
She is in police custody for her own safety to avoid further trouble.
Police say problems in that particular school have gotten out of hand and teachers are not able to control it.
It is almost a normal thing to see teenagers and young adults openly drinking alcohol in full public view.
They then urinate against a fence or a tree with no care in the world.
The obscene verbal diarrhoea they holler out of their mouth makes one sick to the gut.
It is already a public concern on student behaviour and activities in our schools.
We have students carrying weapons, especially knives, walking with little music boxes and their music blaring away either on their way to school or returning home.
Everywhere there are talks about the breakdown in law and order, increase in alcohol and drug abuse, increase in domestic violence, police brutality, sorcery accusation-related deaths and generally a breakdown in services.
All fingers point to the government of the day, blaming it for diverting its focus elsewhere on not on matters where we think are supposed to be addressed.
Realistically, given the current situation the country is in, the Government can only do what it can do and the rest of it now falls back more specifically on families.
What happens in a family unit should be setting the foundation of how children move and interact in the community.
Empowering them with the skill to impact the message of love, sharing and forgiveness through their actions.
The family is a place where children can be raised in a safe and stable environment.
Families are a place where three or four generations can care for each other from cradle to grave.
These include the sick, the vulnerable, the disabled and the aged.
It gives family members a sense of purpose and meaning that paid jobs cannot.
The family is the basic unit of society.
Changes may not happen overnight but can be achieved if all the effort is put into empowering a family unit, especially the father and mother.
The police must be strict in upholding the law and taking to court those who violate or breach it.
Harsh as it may sound, the solution to this is to take students caught to court.
Let the law deal with rogue behaviour appropriately.
If possible, parents should be required to accompany their children to court to witness for themselves the seriousness of what they have done.
The time for pussyfooting around is over.