The report released by the Saudi Ministry of Education indicating a 13 percent rise in campus violence this year compared to the same period last year should be a cause for serious concern. We are told that there were 115 cases of students attacking teachers, while the latter were involved in 64 cases of ill-treatment against students. These were in addition to 179 cases of students fighting among themselves.
How can one explain the surge in youth violence involving eight students who assaulted their teacher from a school in one of Madinah’s districts, while his colleagues could do nothing but watch the ugly spectacle? One should commend the initiative of Madinah Governor Prince Muqrin who ordered public flogging of the students found guilty of assault and battery.
According to observers of the campus scene, a combination of factors is responsible for the current situation in Saudi schools. They range from student-teacher relations, gradual erosion of family values and environment at home to the impact of the satellite TV. The root cause of the malaise is bad parenting at home that saps the moral foundation of a child. As a result, he grows up in an environment in which material and ephemeral values take precedence over moral and intellectual norms.
The situation has been further compounded by social instability at home. Shaikh Abdullah Al-Sulaiman, president of welfare and marriage department in Riyadh, disclosed recently that there were 3,000 cases of divorce in one year, with the divorce rate spiraling by about 27 percent. He urged married couples to show mutual respect and honor their rights and obligations. In other words, they should serve as a role model for their children. But when a mother punches the class teacher for her son’s shoddy performance or when a head of the family shoots eleven people dead in an act of revenge, you are creating a scenario in which the seeds of hatred would sprout more violence and respect for elders would take leave of absence.
The straws show which way the wind is blowing. Saudi youngsters, or at least a section among them, show scant respect for their elders. Status symbols matter much more than matters of substance. No wonder, the student pulls out his revolver to ram home the point that he who has the trigger calls the shot.
The teachers also need to inject some human element into their relations with the students. Their autocratic behavior in the classroom and their lack of understanding as to how to deal with wayward students must take a share of the blame. One of the comments heard was that teachers behave like automatons programmed to deliver the goods mechanically without the warmth of human emotions.
