DANGER IN THE CLASSROOM

Overcrowded classrooms and a lack of discipline in students have been
blamed for stress related deaths among Fiji's schoolteachers.

The problem is so deeply rooted that, according to the Fijian Teachers
Association, 21 teachers died from stress-related illnesses in the
past 12 months.

FTA president Tevita Koroi said because teachers were handling bigger
classes, there were more pupils to handle at any given time.

While the teachers did not mind disciplining students who misbehaved,
the extra activity affected them.

Some would say the lack of discipline in students was caused by the
Ministry of Education's implementation of the "no corporal punishment
policy" in schools.

Others would argue that more students were having disciplinary
problems because of social problems and there was a need to have
professional counsellors in every school.

Then there are some who believe studies on the impact of drugs and
substance abuse should be extended to teachers.

Fiji Council of Social Services director Hassan Khan said it needed to
be known what role alcohol, tobacco, yaqona and marijuana played in
stress levels in students, as well as teachers, because it was
stressful to learn about the 21 recorded deaths.

Fiji teachers are not the only ones feeling stressed.

Across Australia the incidence of teacher stress is also cause for
concern.

Studies in the 1980s in Victoria found around 160 teachers between the
ages of 44-45 years were superannuated (retired) on the grounds of
ill-health every year.

These teachers retired early because of psychological ill-health and a
tenth of teachers retired because of stress-related cardiovascular
disorders.

Extensive studies in Australia showed teacher workload, pressure,
difficulties with management and poor staff-student relationships
caused stress.

Sometimes this stress manifested itself in terms of irritability at
home or in class, anxiety, powerlessness, chronic fatigue, headache,
shingles and rapid heartbeats.

The two unions FTA and the Fiji Teacher Union agree corporal
punishment is not the answer to disciplinary problems in students.

Mr Koroi said there was an urgent need for the ministry to address
class sizes and to introduce counsellors in schools to handle students
with problems.

He said the class to teacher ratios in rural and urban schools
varied.

"While rural schools handle lesser students per teacher, the urban
teachers are forced to have 40 to 55 students in a class and that is
stressful at any one time," he said.

"It is not like all students are disciplined, because some come from
troubled backgrounds and release their frustrations in the classroom
which is why the ministry should put in place counsellors so teachers
can freely teach."

Mr Koroi said parents also had an important role to play and needed to
place more emphasis on spending quality time with their children to
find out what they were going through, in and out of the classrooms,
so they did not become a burden on teachers.

He urged teachers facing stress to place more emphasis on their health
and to take time to care for themselves.

FTU general secretary Agni Deo Singh said the ministry needed to be
serious about reducing the number of students in a class because
teachers were overloaded and there no additional staff were provided
despite the high number of new teachers graduating annually.

He said they had sent several submissions to the ministry on this
issue.

Mr Singh said the lack of discipline in students showed parents were
not spending enough quality time with their children.

If parents spent more time with their children they would learn to
respect and appreciate discipline and authority.

Mr Singh urged parents to teach their children at a young age to
respect others so that when they grow up they would be
disciplined.

"Good behaviour should be taught in the formative years of the child
and they would never ignore it," he said.

Mr Singh and Mr Koroi both agreed corporal punishment was not the way
to go.

Mr Singh said that as humans, students responded more to love and
affection rather than corporal punishment.

"Sometimes corporal punishment just hardens the attitude of children
and they only behave under supervision.

"When you leave them unattended, they rebel.

"It is demoralising and inhuman to expect children to behave when they
are spanked and some even drop out of school because of fear."

Today only 28 counsellors are employed by a few secondary schools,
even though there are more than 160 secondary schools and 700 primary
schools around the country.

"Ordinary teachers are not skilled counsellors and should not be
handling troubled students," he said.

"Instead, qualified counsellors should be hired by the
ministry."

Mr Singh said although he had no statistics related to teacher death
and stress, he agreed the problem affected teachers' health.

He said students needed to realise their parents struggled to send
them to school to learn.

"Students need to understand the objective of going to school," he
said.

Save the Children (Fiji) chief executive Irshad Ali said there were
many causes for stress and it was inappropriate to blame children as
the sole reason for it.

"What may be a challenge for one person could be a stressor for
another.

"It depends largely on background experiences, temperament and
environmental conditions.

"These may either cause stress initially or aggravate the stress
already present from other sources," he said.

Mr Ali said for the past two decades at least, teachers had felt the
effects of the overwhelming demands that were constantly placed on
them.

"Schools are being called upon to find the remedies for many of
society's ills," he said.

"They are often blamed for what goes wrong, even if they do not have
complete control over the matter.

"They are constantly called upon to incorporate new content and
approaches.

"These demands are often met in the face of cuts to education budgets
and staffing schedules."

Mr Ali said teachers needed to be equipped with the right skills in
order to identify stress factors and actions they could take to
overcome them.

"Teachers undergoing stress should be supported by a mechanism within
the ministry that will directly address the issue effectively through
referral, counselling or support services.

"They should also be encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle in order
to decrease stress levels and avoid indulging in activities which
affect their physical and mental well being and ability to deliver to
children effectively," he said.

Mr Ali said corporal punishment was not an effective method of
discipline.

"Research conducted at local and international level by Save the
Children has shown it does more harm than good," he said.

"Corporal punishment in effect perpetuates violence among
children.

"It teaches children that they can use violence to have their
advantage or to get things.

"Corporal punishment is not the answer.

"Educators should instead be investing in creating a positive learning
environment for children," he said.