Alain Jeannot
25 March 2008
Port Louis — Laura Clark, education correspondent for the Daily Mail could not have found a more befitting title for her most pertinent article published on 19 March 2003 than "Decline of marriage is destroying our pupils".
In fact her comments on and reports about the annual conference of the British Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) not only raises the alarm about the negative influence of the growing number of broken and dysfunctional families on education, but also calls for urgent measures to change the trend. According to the ATL, family stability, or the lack of it is an important determinant of the child's education outcome.
Children developing in stable nuclear married families are less likely to face the emotional turmoil their less lucky counterparts are often exposed to. They in general benefit from more affection and parental control.
Incidentally, according to a survey carried out by the U.S center for marriage and family in 2005, students from broken homes were 30 percent more likely to miss school, be late, or cut class than students from intact homes, in part because single parents had more difficulty monitoring their children. These children were also at higher risk for smoking, using drugs and consuming alcohol. Teenagers from non-intact families were more likely to be sexually active and had higher rates of pregnancy. Girls from divorced single-mother homes were at greatest risk for teenage pregnancy
Lack of support in broken families also contributes to the fact that children coming from them often fail to do their homework regularly. The ATL are appealing on the authorities to do their level best to promote family values and strengthen traditional family structures.
A survey carried out in the US seems to justify their position as it showed that if family structures were as strong as in the 70's 643,000 fewer children each year would fail a grade at school and 453,000 fewer children each year would be involved in violence.
Is our family structure not also waning under our paradisiacal skies? How far are children from broken families being cared for differently in our schools? Should the authorities not give even more incentives to encourage stable nuclear families? Are parents fully aware of the influence of their love life on their children?
Such questions deserve to be raised in modern Mauritius where, despite efforts to provide free quality education to all, more than 30% fail at CPE level while juvenile delinquency is on the rise? Is the increase in the divorce rate from 0.3 in 1965 to 2.2 % in 2006 and the growing number of families living out of wedlock foreign to that situation? Should we not also consolidate our family structure with the help of the authorities?
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