kisigino cha mguu
Member
- Dec 22, 2012
- 6
- 1
Anderlek Prison or School? Who is at Fault?
It is perplexing why Mwalimu Alexander Kazimil has got it right academically but he has definitely got it extremely wrong administratively. A remedy to the present situation prevailing at his school has to be instituted almost immediately, so I think. Scholars at his school are subjected to severe and chronic emotional stress and occasionally to physical injury by the persistent caning that his academic staff continuously administer to students at his school. Extensive and excessive use of caning or beating with sticks of all sorts is simply abuse of highest order and is a matter that should not be treated by the community as a non-issue. As the jury, public and private, is still out on this serious issue of caning, what does Mwalimu Kazimil do to address this caning issue which is currently a dreadful hallmark of his school and a regular feature?
His school, which is in Kahama in Shinyanga Region, has all of its students not only troubled by frequent sirens sent over the air by the neighbouring Buzwagi Mine but also distressed by an alarmingly increasing scale of rampant canes that are administered by academic staff to students. Parents, the community around the school and the scholars themselves have never come to grips on why strokes are the order of the day in a school whose academic records rank among the top in Shinyanga and also Tanzania. While the annoying sirens can be endured, the troubling and haphazardly growing pattern of behaviour by staff who find dangerous satisfaction in the practice has to be checked.
This private project offering education to our youth at secondary school O-level is registered as Anderlek Ridges Secondary School by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (S.2465). Owned and run by Mr Alexander Kazimil, the school is sister to Rocken Hill Academy also in Kahama. The latter began business much earlier. Anderlek Ridges Secondary School is co-educational with a boarding student population of well above 900.
CSEE 2012 examination results of the school issued by the National Examinations Council in May 2013 were among the best nation-wide and read as follows: Division I = 34, Division II = 53, Division III = 33, Division IV = 19 and Failed = 0. The centre’s position in its category (regionwise) was 2/187 and (nationwise) 36/3396. These results, by present standards, are simply fantastic and praiseworthy. Many parents have urged their offsprings to join the school for its renowned excellence. The school’s motto is “Quality Performance, Diligence and Consistence.” So the school advertises itself by remarking “Join Us and Be Better Educated - Welcome One, Welcome All.” Let us now hear about the caning that blemishes the school.
In many countries, caning is also an endorsed punishment in reform schools and as a prison disciplinary measure. Caning, not in a form which is strong or harsh in degree or intensity, is used to punish youngsters in many schools for serious (repeat serious) misconduct. Their governments encourage this but do not allow caning for girls - instead girls receive a longer form of detention - and no more than 6 strokes are permitted. A much smaller stick or other gadget is also used by some parents as punishment for their children of either sex. Although not encouraged by their governments, “the child must not be injured” by caning is the rule always almost everywhere these days.
While visiting a family related to me in Dar es Salaam three weeks ago, I heard and got disturbed by narrations of their 17-year old son on the caning situation at Anderlek Ridges Secondary School. I am an educational product of Tanzanian schools who later went on to become an educator in a number of schools country-wide; some with very high academic performance. What I heard from their son baffled me completely and had my conscience beaten. He talked of teachers going around on their duties with a bundle of sticks and a room full of sticks at the school with stocks being maintained by regular supplies from a tree garden in the school compound that has been put in a place for the purpose. This in itself is terrifying. Even more distressing is his narration that even average students are each guaranteed a minimum of 200 strokes in 60 days.
The parents of the boy, while being extremely impressed by the schoolÂ’s remarkable academic performance, were in a dilemma on whether to encourage the young man to persevere the traumatic experience that he had to go through or look for an alternative school where his pursuit of academics without scars similar to Anderlek ones could be obtained in a conducive and peaceful environment.
As said earlier, my experience as a student and a “mwalimu” for about 55 years was brought into immense testing and advice mode by the boy’s narrations. I urged the boy to persevere and we, somehow, would get a message sent to the public and Mwalimu Kazimil to ask him to institute deserving action to hands-on and positively address a situation that is not only damaging his good school’s name and image but severely and negatively taking its toll on the future of the students in many aspects. It is embarrassingly unfortunate also that parents of students at the school do not have occasions where they routinely meet staff of the school for reviews and discussions.
To sum it all, on a sad note and to probably show that the situation at Anderlek Ridges Secondary School warrants an immediate redress, the parents noted that a nurse, administering an intramuscular injection to the young boy a few days ago, had remarked that muscles on the boyÂ’s behind had abnormally stiffened. The father and mother now believe the obnoxious caning was being abnormally executed and hence the hardening.
For Mwalimu Kazimil and relevant authorities at whatever level, the above surely gives you plenty of food for urgent thought. Save our future generation from the atrocious corporal punishment. After all, schools are not prisons and the vice-versa is not true.
I wish the school well in its endeavours – and let it be a befitting model for the right actions, academically and administratively.
It is perplexing why Mwalimu Alexander Kazimil has got it right academically but he has definitely got it extremely wrong administratively. A remedy to the present situation prevailing at his school has to be instituted almost immediately, so I think. Scholars at his school are subjected to severe and chronic emotional stress and occasionally to physical injury by the persistent caning that his academic staff continuously administer to students at his school. Extensive and excessive use of caning or beating with sticks of all sorts is simply abuse of highest order and is a matter that should not be treated by the community as a non-issue. As the jury, public and private, is still out on this serious issue of caning, what does Mwalimu Kazimil do to address this caning issue which is currently a dreadful hallmark of his school and a regular feature?
His school, which is in Kahama in Shinyanga Region, has all of its students not only troubled by frequent sirens sent over the air by the neighbouring Buzwagi Mine but also distressed by an alarmingly increasing scale of rampant canes that are administered by academic staff to students. Parents, the community around the school and the scholars themselves have never come to grips on why strokes are the order of the day in a school whose academic records rank among the top in Shinyanga and also Tanzania. While the annoying sirens can be endured, the troubling and haphazardly growing pattern of behaviour by staff who find dangerous satisfaction in the practice has to be checked.
CSEE 2012 examination results of the school issued by the National Examinations Council in May 2013 were among the best nation-wide and read as follows: Division I = 34, Division II = 53, Division III = 33, Division IV = 19 and Failed = 0. The centre’s position in its category (regionwise) was 2/187 and (nationwise) 36/3396. These results, by present standards, are simply fantastic and praiseworthy. Many parents have urged their offsprings to join the school for its renowned excellence. The school’s motto is “Quality Performance, Diligence and Consistence.” So the school advertises itself by remarking “Join Us and Be Better Educated - Welcome One, Welcome All.” Let us now hear about the caning that blemishes the school.
In many countries, caning is also an endorsed punishment in reform schools and as a prison disciplinary measure. Caning, not in a form which is strong or harsh in degree or intensity, is used to punish youngsters in many schools for serious (repeat serious) misconduct. Their governments encourage this but do not allow caning for girls - instead girls receive a longer form of detention - and no more than 6 strokes are permitted. A much smaller stick or other gadget is also used by some parents as punishment for their children of either sex. Although not encouraged by their governments, “the child must not be injured” by caning is the rule always almost everywhere these days.
While visiting a family related to me in Dar es Salaam three weeks ago, I heard and got disturbed by narrations of their 17-year old son on the caning situation at Anderlek Ridges Secondary School. I am an educational product of Tanzanian schools who later went on to become an educator in a number of schools country-wide; some with very high academic performance. What I heard from their son baffled me completely and had my conscience beaten. He talked of teachers going around on their duties with a bundle of sticks and a room full of sticks at the school with stocks being maintained by regular supplies from a tree garden in the school compound that has been put in a place for the purpose. This in itself is terrifying. Even more distressing is his narration that even average students are each guaranteed a minimum of 200 strokes in 60 days.
The parents of the boy, while being extremely impressed by the schoolÂ’s remarkable academic performance, were in a dilemma on whether to encourage the young man to persevere the traumatic experience that he had to go through or look for an alternative school where his pursuit of academics without scars similar to Anderlek ones could be obtained in a conducive and peaceful environment.
As said earlier, my experience as a student and a “mwalimu” for about 55 years was brought into immense testing and advice mode by the boy’s narrations. I urged the boy to persevere and we, somehow, would get a message sent to the public and Mwalimu Kazimil to ask him to institute deserving action to hands-on and positively address a situation that is not only damaging his good school’s name and image but severely and negatively taking its toll on the future of the students in many aspects. It is embarrassingly unfortunate also that parents of students at the school do not have occasions where they routinely meet staff of the school for reviews and discussions.
To sum it all, on a sad note and to probably show that the situation at Anderlek Ridges Secondary School warrants an immediate redress, the parents noted that a nurse, administering an intramuscular injection to the young boy a few days ago, had remarked that muscles on the boyÂ’s behind had abnormally stiffened. The father and mother now believe the obnoxious caning was being abnormally executed and hence the hardening.
For Mwalimu Kazimil and relevant authorities at whatever level, the above surely gives you plenty of food for urgent thought. Save our future generation from the atrocious corporal punishment. After all, schools are not prisons and the vice-versa is not true.
I wish the school well in its endeavours – and let it be a befitting model for the right actions, academically and administratively.
