By Maureen Atuonwu
Some stakeholders in the South-East have advocated the introduction of strong child monitoring and protection measures in primary and post-primary schools across the country to curb immorality.
They made the call in Enugu while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in the aftermath of the incidents in Chrisland School and Dowen College.
A guidance counsellor in Abia, Mrs Chinememma Umesiaka, said that monitoring and counselling were two strategic means of instilling discipline and good behaviour in children.
Umesiaka, an aide to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia on Teenage Matters, underscored the need for stakeholders in responsible parenting to assist parents to monitor the activities of children on social media.
“Social media have become a huge threat to the mental health and general wellbeing of our teens because they are replete with fake lifestyles and children are incapable of filtering reality from make-believe.
“They follow a lot of celebrities whose morals are nothing to write home about and end up questioning everything they are taught at home, especially when they consider those celebrities as being better off.
“Our teens spend an unbelievable amount of time on social media to the extent of depriving themselves of sleep, which affects their health.
“Social media has put undue pressure on our teens. They distract a lot of them from their studies and other priorities, thus taking a big toll on them,” she said.
Umesiaka said that the development made it imperative for parents, guardians, and custodians to institute parameters for guiding the young ones.
“Failure to do so would create an avenue for negative influences from the social media on the teenagers. My teenage children know we have apps monitoring their online activities, so if you do nonsense, you forfeit your privilege of using your phone.
“Parents should be very firm because the key points here are guiding and monitoring them. Go online and you will see apps to monitor their engagements and even where they are at any given time, especially once their location is turned on,” Umesiaka said.
Also, a child rights advocate, Miss Onyinyechi Nwosu, described responsible parenting as the act of raising children with positive values and character, helping them to develop healthy self-esteem.
Nwosu said that children were usually exposed to a lot of negative influences, especially during their adolescence “due to negative peer pressure and exposure to information that was not age-appropriate.”
She, therefore, urged stakeholders to play an active role in giving responsible parenting to children they interacted with toward making a better society.
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A public affairs analyst in Umuahia, Mr Godson Adiele, spoke of the need for parents to devote more of their time and resources toward ensuring that their children were properly brought up with the right values and acceptable behaviour.
Adiele said that in the African tradition, parenting was not the exclusive responsibility of parents but included the entire community, teachers in schools as well as other guardians and custodians.
“This is because, in our clime, parents cannot always be with their children. At such times when parents are away from home or the children are going to school, the teachers, guardians, and custodians take over the job of parenting,” he said.
A parent, Mrs Ngozi Eze, blamed the pre-teen sex scandal in Chrisland School, Lagos on the failure of the value system.
“What happened in that school is a product of societal decay,” she added.
Another parent, Mrs Caroline Uzondu, called for the strengthening of a legal framework that would provide for severe punishment against the circulation of pornography.
“In Lagos State, for instance, circulation of pornographic materials attracts a penalty of 14 years imprisonment. Such laws should be enacted or strengthened in all states of the federation because adolescent sexuality is on the rise in the country,” she said.
A teacher, Mr James Iroegbu, said that parents had abdicated their responsibilities to schools.
Iroegbu regretted that most parents did not know what was going on with their children any longer, nor did they visit their schools to monitor what they did.
“When I was teaching in Lagos, I once caught my pupil, an eight-year-old, in the classroom with an adult film jacket. Her classmates gathered around and were looking at the pictures together. The girl confessed to me that she sneaked it from her parents’ room.
“The challenge is that these children have become more exposed to all kinds of social vices and immoral acts, not thanks to social media. So, it is important that the child protection mechanism is strengthened in our schools and society in general,” Iroegbu further said.
In Imo, stakeholders called for more focus on moral instructions in schools as well as the reintroduction of club activities.
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A mother of four, Mrs Maria Udechukwuwho, said this would help in instilling the right values in children, and blamed the issues related to immorality among children and teens on improper guidance on the part of parents.
She added that parents should also be more interested in the education of their children, especially those whose children were in boarding schools.
Udechukwuwho said the focus should not just be on their academic prowess and urged parents to create a close bond with their children, so they could confide in them on issues concerning them, especially peer pressure.
She equally added that schools, particularly boarding schools, should be able to pick up the slack in areas where parents were not meeting up by creating opportunities for mentoring and providing strong guidance and counselling units
Also contributing, a teacher, Mr Jude Ugoh stated that parents should support schools in disciplinary efforts and not try to encourage bad behaviour in their children.
Ugoh noted that while some schools went overboard in disciplining students, some parents insisted on shielding their children from the consequences of their actions.
He also called for the reinvigoration of Parent-Teacher Associations in schools to foster a stronger partnership between schools and parents as they had a greater influence on
children in their formative years.
In Anambra State, a teacher at Igwebueze Primary School, Ifite Awka, Mrs Mary Abazu, said that it was more tedious for them at the primary level to moulding pupils.
“Some parents just believe that once school fees are paid, it solely behooves on teachers to make the pupils better. But it is not true that we teachers have at most, eight hours to spend with pupils, and the rest hours at home,” she said.
A civil servant, Mrs Cordelia Maduka, on her part, said that most parents should be blamed for the misdemeanour being exhibited by most children and should be stopped.
“A situation whereby parents buy their children an android phone without monitoring their activities on the phone for questioning. Some parents even go as far as threatening teachers when their wards are disciplined, then how can such a child not be wayward?” She asked.
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A parent, Mr Nnamdi Nwafam, called on schools to impose stiffer punishment on pupils, students that went contrary to laid down school rules.
“In most schools, hardly enforce discipline; in some cases, school teachers pay lip service to their profession by just giving students notes to copy without teaching them.
“Some teachers don’t even make a record of students’ attendance in class, in that regard parents can’t be blamed for all they know is that their wards went to school without knowing that they had gone elsewhere,” he said.
A teacher, Miss Nkechi Okonkwo, called on the authorities of school policies to inculcate religious and moral studies in all schools.
“By doing so, our children will be forced to know the importance of putting God first in their actions and have a good moral upbringing that will benefit the nation,” she said.
An educationist, Mrs Jacintha Nweke, of the Comprehensive Secondary School, Enugu, says that indiscipline in many schools in the country has ruined the educational system.
She said that it was unfortunate that many schools were no longer after children’s moral behaviours but after money.
“Moral instructions and discipline used to be what schools inculcate in children, which prompted many parents to enrol their children into schools that had disciplinarians.
“Because both public and private schools including some missions’ schools do not care about their students’ characters, that is why we are witnessing cultism and immorality among children, who should be making their schools and parents proud by studying hard,” she said.
(NAN Feature)
“The incidents, especially the one that took place in Dowen College, will discourage many parents especially, those whose children are in primary schools from seeking admission into boarding schools,” she said.
A parent, Mr Dan Okwu, said that it was sad that both parents and schools could no longer teach children good morals, adding that it was a serious issue.
“The incidents in both schools have shown that the education system in Nigeria has failed, especially in disciplines and moral values”.
He called on parents and all stakeholders in education to rethink the way forward to help mould Nigerian children to have quality education which includes learning and good character for a better society.
(NAN Feature)
