GSK Initiative Condemns the Cruel Displinary Measures of Nasarrawa School Teacher

The importance placed on the lives of children and young people in Nigeria, and many other nations around the world has grown rapidly in recent decades. This is partly a result of the interest of these nations to secure a future for the people's existence and majorly because of the need for an organized social sustainability system that would transcend the present and help retain the pillars of global citizenship on the larger scale. These social imperatives have come to define, among other important factors, the reason why children and young people have come to mean a lot to the State. In recent times, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State conducted a competency test for all primary school teachers across the State. To the surprise of majority of the residents, more than 70 percent of this teachers failed the test. The public uproar that echoed the condemnation of this sad development made Kaduna and the young minds under the tutelage of these teachers subjects of public pity.

This horrible development and the public reaction that followed it is an indication of the general interest of citizens in the  lives and performance of young people within the country. An equal sad development of the same magnitude is the one that took the air from Nasarrawa State early this week. The video clip went viral on the internet showing a Government Science Secondary School teacher proudly flogging a group of students without a token of mercy. The students who were reported to have resumed late to school after the holiday were brutally flogged in the presence of many other students and teachers on an assembly ground. Global Support for Kids Initiative has come to condemn this act. It shouldn't happen that students should be treated as mere objects where they are legitimately considered a very important part of the society.

In this regard, we have come to condemn this vicious act on the two grounds that the disciplinary measure adopted by the School teacher is a path to 'animalizing' the pride of the nation. We came to this conclusion after considering the degree at which the said teacher meted his frustration on these students. The school as an institution is expected to humanize them. A better evaluation would nonetheless find the students as victims of a psychic disorder from the teacher who considers the students as 'qualified' subjects for abreaction. This is wrong. Also, we condemn this act having studied the rate at which similar occurrence has grown in Nigerian pre-varsity institutions. The pain is not only in the fact that these teachers are demoralizing their innocent victims or in the fact that they are trying to displace them psychologically, although those are also salient; but most fundamentally in the fact that they are not building the students in line with what the nation requires of the system. By killing their sense of self, studies show that they are more likely to become grand subjects in a typical psychological problem which unfortunately was caused them by the society they belong.

Against this background, we at GSK Initiative expressly call for a massive cleansing of the school system within the State. We consider the fact that this is not likely exclusive to Government Science Secondary School alone. It is in this regard that we charge the Nasarrawa State Ministry of Education to heed the call of re-locating the ideal sense of the school system and ensure strict enforcement among stakeholders. Displinary measures are necessary, but should not be taking in this manner. It shouldn't be the ground through which the child get disfigured psychologically. In sanitising Nigeria, we have considered the imperatives of getting everyone into the job and that does not exclude these young people. It would be wise if we treat them with respect in the interest of every citizen of Nigeria, and the global community in general.