According to the school calendar, the second term of the school year is left with approximately one week. Students are expected to break off for their holidays next week on Friday. As is often the case the last week is used by the teachers to mark the scripts of the students, compile marks, and later on prepare the report cards for the students to take home. While the teachers are busy trying to beat deadlines, the students are often left idle and in some cases disorderly. The time tested, adage come in play then. An idle mind is certainly the devil’s workshop. Once the students are left idle in the last week of the term then a disaster is simply waiting to happen. Remember this is a time when they think less about their academic duties. On completing their exams many perceive this as a time for the brains to take a rest from the books. Some private owned schools use this week to commit broad day light fraud by sending the students back home and asking them to return a week later to pick their report cards. Fraud is the modest word, this is day light robbery. A head teacher who sends students back home before the term has officially closed needs to be locked up and the keys kept very far because these student pay school fees for the whole term and not part of the term. Some head teachers have always fronted the excuse that it is very difficult to control the students in this last week, but this is a very lame excuse that any school head should be ashamed to utter. It is like the police and other security agencies saying that people should not move at night because it is hard to keep law and order at night. When a child comes to school, he or she does not do so for only academic purposes. One is supposed to get an all round and holistic education covering the various aspects of life. Therefore it is not the end of life when examinations are completed. Instead this should be the time for school authorities to devise programmes that enable students to indulge more in the different extra curricular activities that a school as an institution has to offer. This last week is the best time for the different clubs in the school to step up their activities now that time is on their side. Drama, music, and dance clubs can use this time to practice and come up with presentations for fellow students. A debating club can for instance use this time to organise competitions between different classes and consequently benefit from the debates as they improve on their language skills. The last week is also the best time for students to give their sports talents a chance. The games’ department should utilise this time and organise min competitions for the students. For a start you can have an inter class football competition played on a knock out basis. The same can be done with other games like basketball, volleyball, and even chess. This can go along way in helping the students to develop their talents and keep themselves occupied as they wait for the term to ebb to an end. Short of the above, students may be compelled to indulge in all sorts of anti social behaviours like smoking and drug consumption. Being idle, you are likely to record all kinds of disciplinary problems like fights and even thefts among the students. Considering that most teachers are so busy with marking, compiling of marks and making report cards, no one wishes to be tired back by solving students’ disciplinary cases. It is therefore imperative to urge the students to conduct themselves in a respectable manner but this can best be aided by devising all methods of keeping them occupied. Contact: ssenyonga@gmail.com
