Youth Education and Prevention of Aggressive, Desperate, and Immoral Acts in Places of Learning in Cameroon

Par mluemsa Le 11/04/2023 à 10:49 0

Dossier Education of consciences Aware of their responsibilities, parents in particular do everything possible depending on their means to ensure that their children receive a quality education because they are aware of the fact that school is the foundation of all true social success conditioned by the refusal to adopt actions likely to reduce to nothing long years of effort.

Places of learning! Laboratories of knowledge and know-how that have shaped the people we have had, those we have, those we are, and those we will be. Places which for us are source of pride due to their reputation and the quality of training provided there. Places of reference that are today the scene of an unprecedented set of uncivil and immoral acts, which reflect the reality of a youth threatened by a set of excesses that are highly attractive in the pleasure they provide, but highly aggressive in the harm they cause not only in the lives of those who engage themselves in such practices, but also the society in general, and school in particular. An institution at the service of a set of complex societies that face several major challenges imposed by a set of confusing fashion phenomenon.

Whether in Cameroon or elsewhere, it is no longer surprising to hear that a student was threatened with death by another with a stabling weapon, or that a teacher was violently attacked by a student or vice versa. The difference of the geographic contexts does not change anything. At the level of each country there are always several tangibles evidence of a same reality that is living elsewhere, and which gives to the places of production of a quality human capital an appearance of settling of accounts scene, exhibitions scene, narcotics traffic area, and crime scene.

Cameroon, January 2020: Cameroon Tribune

"Éffroi hier au lycée classique de Nkolbisson à Yaoundé. B.B.N, 17ans, élève en classe de 4^e Espagnol II, tue son enseignant de mathématiques M.N.T, 26 ans, avec une arme blanche. La scène se déroule autour de 11h, alors que le jeune enseignant vacataire depuis deux mois dispense son cours. Selon les camarades de classe du bourreau, ce dernier est absent au moment où l’enseignant démarre sa leçon. Quand il est arrivé, le professeur lui a demandé de se coucher à plat ventre, ou alors de rester à l’extérieur. Il a refusé et a dit qu’il ne peut pas se coucher devant ses petits frères. Avec son compas, l’enseignant l’a bousculé en lui demandant de sortir de la classe. C’est à ce moment que B.N.N a arraché le compas de la main du professeur, l’a balancé au sol, a sorti un couteau de son sac et a poignardé l’enseignant."

A case among many others in a society where despite the prohibitions, some students continue to consume drugs and alcohol, in addition to come to school with prohibited objects that they do not hesitate to use to hurt and even kill others young people like them, who trying to adapt in a set of difficult contexts where the reality of unemployment in addition to the poor career management of certain civil servants, leads several young people to seek alternative solutions in order to meet their needs. In this specific case, as in most cases, it is always a young man who attacks another who is also his teacher, in addition to being his elder. A detail that we cannot take into consideration when we are overwhelmed by the desire to commit an act that in one way or another will be regrettable, because it is after having committed such a serious act that we sometimes realize that our actions can have very serious consequences, not only in our own life, but also in that of our loved ones, and the family of the victim. This factual information is a great life lesson not only for B.N.N, but also for his classmates and teachers particularly because the reality of the difficulties they experience on a daily basis in schools, can sometimes lead them to commit acts of the same nature.

Cameroon, September 2022: Radio France international

"Deux semaines après la rentrée des classes, le Cameroun est indigné par un acte de violence perpétré par un enseignant sur un élève dans la ville d’ÉBOLOWA, dans le Sud du pays. Les faits se sont déroulés le Jeudi 15 Septembre. Le jeune élève en classe de première, toujours hospitalisé, n’a eu la vie sauve qu’après une intervention chirurgicale. Les camarades de classe du jeune élève rapportent une scène particulièrement brutale. Ce matin du 15 Septembre, en pleine séance de travail avec leur encadreur, conseiller d’orientation dans l’établissement, une soudaine empoignade éclate, opposant l’enseignant à l’élève U.A âgé de 17 ans. L’enseignant, dans un indicible accès de colère, va rouer le jeune apprenant de coups particulièrement violents."

Another case where a teenager and an adult come to blows. If this time the end of the scene is not fatal, the act is still extremely worrying given that it takes place in a learning space, in addition to ending up in a hospital. These are kind of acts that the highest authorities want to avoid in places of learning where the education and training of young people is intended not to be limited to the assimilation of the lessons and their proper restitution after evaluation. Training also consists of contributing to the production of human capital that will demonstrate honesty, sincerity, respect, reasoned obedience, patience, and love of work well done, wherever needs require it. This is what justifies the reality of educational talks in addition to awareness campaigns against drug and tobacco consumption, and the presence in schools of anti-corruption campaigns because these students are only reproducing what they observe in a society where juvenile delinquency explains the presence of prohibited objects in schools. Indeed, to give an appearance of grandeur that is not one in reality, several students show up in schools with daggers, drugs and alcohol whose ingenious methods of concealment denote the misdirection of an intelligence that sometimes makes people think that they only know how to hurt others. It is precisely to prove the opposite that schools in particular are trying as best they can to put in place measures to prevent the entry of prohibited objects in school premises, because in addition to constituting a danger to the lives of other students, their presence despite the prohibitions, is a refusal to comply with the internal regulations which have been established in order to sow and make grow in them the value of respect of institutions and others lives. Their presence in schools despite prohibitions are acts which demonstrate the fact that these students are not yet fully aware of the sacred character of the school as an institution where any act of violence is prohibited. Schools are learning spaces with staff who are supposed to interact with parents, so that the latter help them to better supervise or support these students, some of whom are used to seeing and reproducing what they do at school within their family units, which are also places of learning. Indeed, when the school is threatened, the whole society is in danger. Hence the descents of police in some schools, not only for repression, but above all talk to young people about the dangers of drug consumption and violence in schools milieu.

Cameroon: May 2024: The Guardian Post

”At the end of a visit to Government High School, GBHS, Mimboman in Yaounde, senior superintendent, F.M.W, explained that the visit was part of actions to showcase the activities and role of CSESU (schools and Universities Security Company) in the fight against drug consumption and violence in schools. During the visit, the police advised the students that consumption of drugs has physical and mental consequences on their health and could also jeopardise their future. While teaching them that drug consumption provokes violence, the police officers warned the students to stay away from bad friends, remain disciplined and focus on their studies as future leaders of tomorrow. One of the highpoints was a search of one of the classroom, during which objects such as needles, a set of playing cards, and a condom were found. Owners were taken for questioning at the CSESU (Compagnie de Sécurisation des Établissements Scolaires et Universitaires) headquarters and made to sign and undertaking a good moral. Speaking to the press at the end of the exercise, the commander of the Special Unit reiterated that their mission is to fight and eradicate the consumption of drug and violence in the school milieu.”

The situation therefore requires firm measures, in order to encourage young people in general and young adolescents in particular, not to adopt or no longer reproduce the immoral acts that they see around them, and whose choice to adopt or reproduce after having been influenced by people of bad morals in particular, denotes a vulnerability that exposes them to the adoption of a set of vices and other aggressive acts in total contradiction with the teachings they received in conventional places, thanks to the work of teachers who must not be the only ones to assume this responsibility of producing quality human capital of great use for a society where the particularly worrying behaviours of young people in particular, must benefit from the attention of all those who want to contribute to this project which is in fact a civic duty.

In 2007, a year where I was in what we call lower sixth in the English subsystem, I noticed that new generations of the school where I was, were more disrespectful than those which preceded them. One day I said to a very turbulent student of from two that if he continues to be disrespectful, the next time, I would report his bad behaviour to a competent authority of the school in disciplinary matters. When I said it, that student started to encourage me to go by showing me the direction of the office with his finger: "What do you think he's going to do to me?" he said.

We went then to the general supervisor office, and I reported the situation to him. He said to that child to be careful! And what the authority said was what I wanted because when those of my generation were in from II and even in lower sixth, when a teacher asked us to be careful, we always took these words seriously. But it was not the case with that child. When we cross the door of the office to go outside, he said to me: "Did you see? What did he do to me?" I didn't stop there! I tried to find out if he had a brother or sister in the school, or someone who knew his parents because his behaviour seemed very worrying to me. I found that he had a brother who was a student in the same school, in from three. He told me where they lived, and I decided to go and meet his parents one day. The day I went there, his father was not there. So I explained the reason of my presence to his mother. That day, he didn't say a word! He was calm! His mother told Him to stop being disrespectful. Had he taken into account what she had told him? I always hoped so because he was very stubborn.

Some young people have difficulty with the respect of authorities, in addition to consuming drugs and allowing themselves to take and make disconcerting photos and videos in places where they are supposed to receive teachings provided in order to bring them not to adopt that kind of behaviours. Some supervisors no longer even know what to do in the face of these cases of indiscipline. You say to children not to come to school with drugs and other prohibited objects, they respond negatively through a series of seizures that demonstrate an unconsciousness that mocks the universal values advocated in places of learning. Respect, obedience and the love of a job well done are flouted by some young people who prefer aggressiveness, disobedience and cheating.

For Ezeogu Simone Thierry and Konfo Tcholong Clémence Idriss who are respectively psycriminology, psychotraumatology for the first, and psychopathology and clinical psychology for the second,

“In Cameroon, violence among young people in general and in school in particular has become a growing problem over the years. It is constant, deadly and a daily occurrence in almost all public and private schools. In both urban and rural areas. On the evening of 5 September 2023 (the second day of classes after the school holidays), numerous videos of pupils brawling made the rounds of social networks. This shows the scale of the problem in schools. Eradicating violence in school is therefore of paramount importance, and must involve effective prevention. With this in mind, a number of civil society organisations, such as the Association Santé et Bien-être (ASBEC), are committed to combatting violence in schools. This is achieve through prevention.”

This means that, this is a particular problem that requires the contribution of every member of a society where the reality of a set of very worrying facts in particular are calls to make more efforts to bring the youngest in particular to adopt responsible behaviours, not only in the most well-known places of learning, but also in all other places, because the efforts that are made at the school level must be translated into actions in other places, and even improve thanks to other actors whose contribution is necessary in this cycle of training and learning which is intended to produce individuals of great use for a society threatened by a set of excesses whose prevalence in society must be further reduced thanks to a set of responsible commitments and in particular those of parents. Their contribution is particularly important because according to psychologists, stressful situations within the family framework can lead children to be aggressive at school. This is just one of the numerous situations that often lead some young children to consume alcohol and drugs without their parents' knowledge. Hence the importance of making more young adolescents in particular more aware of the dangers they face by adopting illusory means that appear good, but are very disastrous in the lives of those who use them, their families, and the society in general, where adopting false means to escape and succeed always has terrible drawbacks because, nothing good is gained by taking one's own life prematurely to avoid facing the judgments of a society that can itself lead young people to make tragic choices. Likewise, nothing good is gained by being aggressive or engaging in other immoral acts that have no place in places of learning intended to shape quality people in a society that has its good and bad sides due to the quality of the consciences which live there. Moreover, it is important to identify and prevent impulsive behaviours of children specially in learning places. And whatever the reasons of the problems, a teacher must never lose sight of the fact that a classroom is a learning space where anything can happen. Students are more prone to uncontrolled reactions, partly due to their immaturity. Children are more likely to assault one of their teachers. The teacher, who can also be a parent in addition to be an educator, must always keep on his mind that the learners and students under his responsibility deserve special attention, which includes strict respect for the freedoms of each individual. It is therefore up to the teacher to avoid certain scenes, not out of fear, but out of a desire to prevent potentially fatal acts.

For sociologist ABDOULAYE MAHAMAT,

The urban landscape reveals several behaviours that are on the margins of the values advocated in educational establishments. It has become almost normal to see acts of resistance both inside and outside of educational institutions; these resistant behaviours manifest themselves in multiple facets: student loitering in bars during class hours, gambling, corruption, falsifying report cards, influence peddling, deviant clothing, physical assault, drug use, sexual harassment, rape, prostitution, and cheating among others. For him, indeed, if societies and groups strive to get their members to do certain things and avoid others, this contrast between positive and negative controls can only be conceived in the abstract. Both operate together in concrete reality to achieve their goal. The individual can therefore follow the socially approved paths, either because he seeks rewards, or because he wants to avoid punishments or simply because of the two kinds of sanctions.

The reality of the multiple influences in the societies in which young people live, very often leads them to translate concretely in places of learning what they see in society, through impulsive acts which reflect the lack of maturity of their authors, and the real presence of individuals who carry within them the genes of criminality in our urban and rural landscapes where there is a need to do everything to mitigate or even eradicate aggressive, desperate, and immoral acts in schools, not only for the good of these young people, but the society in general.

A good basic education is a priority that must be consolidated and strengthened over time because it is the foundation for a series of future successes, including the school's victory over a series of pernicious acts that seek to establish a home in places of learning. The contribution of parents and other multidimensional educators is of great importance in the training or more concretely the personal development of these citizens called to be at the service of a Nation whose permanent construction will also depend of them. Aware of their responsibilities, parents in particular do everything possible depending on their means to ensure that their children receive a quality education because they are aware of the fact that school is the foundation of all true social success conditioned by the refusal to adopt actions likely to reduce to nothing long years of effort. And even if we must mention the possibility of rebuilding oneself or starting from scratch after a trying and even traumatic past, it is because past experiences always give to those who take them into account, reasons to give a new direction to their lives.

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