By Isaac Mites
The latest gossip landing on Bigeye.ug’s desk is the complaining of top school leaders especially the highly performing ones in Kampala and neighboring towns concurring that social media platforms are to blame for rampant cases of strikes that have encompassed several schools in the country.
The very Top leaders argue that through social media, students are able to update each other on trends in schools and even hype out grievances so that once a strike breaks out in one school, it quickly spreads like a bushfire. Baliinasenko Aida Annet, Headmistress at Iganga SSS, says that the grievances are sometimes trivial and unwarranted.
But head teachers have a challenge to find new methods to prevent strikes and also quick ways to intercept full blown strikes before they become destructive. It is observed that some school administration still use high handed rules that are out of touch with reality.
We also caught up with the Head teacher Hilton High School in Mukono, Katimbo Gordon and he enlighted the situation saying that Information Communication Technology (ICT), is a critical aspect in student’s education, but students are abusing this facility for other social media interests such as Facebook, Twitter, chats and even dating sites. As students are forbidden from any electronic gadget in schools including mobile phones, radios, CD players, and laptops as this may destruct student’s concentration in academic work, students in secondary schools resort to demanding for the right to use social media platforms like Twitter.
In the recent months, secondary schools in western Uganda have been marred with strikes, at least of 44 secondary schools in Sheema district were closed. Of the 44 schools, only two schools had not experienced a strike. Head teachers have been tasked to adopt a leadership style that encourages an open line of communication and mentor-ship for students, who are sometimes left to their own devices.
Parents, the community and guardians were mentioned as important significant others that can help remodel students in their academic tenure. The head teachers were meeting in Kampala for a leadership and management forum in Kampala, which sought to brainstorm on addressing conflicts in schools.
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