Anti-social: Causes/Effects/Solution to Anti-social Behavior

From the foregoing discussion, there seems to be little or no doubt that the increasing and varied anti-social behaviour exhibited today by students has its origin in the conditions that exist in Nigerian society. Denga (1987) has articulated and categorised the causes of misbehaviour by the appertaining mitigating conditions, namely:

Environmental Conditions: These refer to the school conditions themselves. Conditions that can induce anti-social behaviour in students include, for example, too difficult school work, poor pupil-teacher (or student-lecturer) relationship, abrupt changes in teaching methods, poor mental abilities of students, poor teacher performance, and inconsistencies in school policies and their implementation.

Home Conditions: These are conditions that emanate from the homes. They include poverty, defective parent-child relationships, lack of affection, over-strict discipline, drunkenness, fighting by parents, broken homes, etc.

Special Environmental Condition: These pertain to the present rapid changes in society, life becoming more complex and less understood by most children, and a real decline in moral values, especially in our urban areas. Others include observed dishonesty and hypocrisies in the pronouncements and lifestyles of those in leadership positions in society, as well peer peer-related pressures and influences.

Denga (1987) thought that the entire above not only confuses the students but also increases the resolve of the ones with more or less feeble minds to misbehave and to go on misbehaving.

However, apart from those conditions identified, there are some other factors whose multiplier effects have brought untold consequences on the country’s educational sector, thereby engendering anti-social behaviour amongst students. One such factor is the general economic downturn in the country.

Due to this economic depression, the government can no longer meet its responsibility of providing qualitative education through the provision of necessary amenities in our educational institutions. Also, the economic depression has increased the poverty level of an average worker in Nigeria, and teachers at all levels are the worst hit. Hence, the country’s educational sector has been witnessing industrial action by workers (academic and non-academic) occasioned by better conditions of service, as well as demonstrations by students to press home their demands for improved learning conditions.

The resultant effects of these are general paralysis of the educational sector brought about by prolonged suspension of academic activities and its attendant consequence of creating rooms for students to be more enmeshed in anti-social activities. After all, the idle hand, they say, is a devil’s workshop.

Moreover, the general political instability in the country can be identified as another causal factor of anti-social behaviour among students. Apart from the increasing tendency of over-politicisation of the country’s educational policies, politics has also pervaded the country’s educational institutions.

Students have now been turned into veritable instruments of achieving political ends (which are often inordinate) of politicians in the opposition parties or groups. Politicians explore various means (including monetary rewards) to instigate students to riot or demonstrate against the policies of the government of the day. This has, no doubt, fostered a new trend in students’ anti-social behaviour.

Another development is the unhealthy quest for materialism by the general society, which readily provides the drive-orientation that redefines the priorities of the growing adolescents in contrast with the postulations of Abraham Maslow on the ‘human hierarchy of needs’.

The sensibilities of the young student are at times exposed to the new and overbearing influence of Western culture via trips abroad, which plays down the traditional culture and amplifies the ‘been-to’ culture as ideal and more ego–rewarding since it allows a seemingly limitless degree of liberty. Traditional modes of dressing that hitherto were culture-specific in our society were being gradually jettisoned for such debatable cultural malaise like ‘punk outfit’, which historically were trade marks of drug addicts, lesbians, homosexuals, tomboys, etc.

Lastly, the acceptance of the teacher as the students’ ‘Loco-Parentis’ is fast becoming history. The poorly trained teacher is faced with the reality of the first need in Maslow’s hierarchy, which is survival. He has little or no time to show any extra and devoted interest in the training of his students outside the walls of his classroom, for he has to utilise his free time in other profitable and viable ventures that will guarantee that his take-home pay takes him home every month.

Much as I will not want to be accused of painting a grotesque picture of our hapless teachers who may have been more sinned against by society than they have sinned, I want to aver that the era of the ‘teacher’. I want to aver that the era of the ‘teacher’ as a role model for the students is gone. The teacher grew up with the vices of cultism, and his role model is to, at times, try to initiate as many willing students as possible into cult membership.

Implications for the future of education in Nigeria

The upward trend in students’ anti-social behaviour portends a lot of danger for the future of education in Nigeria. The truth about this assertion can first be gleaned from the fact that anti-social behaviour has disruptive effects not only on the educational programs at the School but also on the security, peace, tranquillity, and harmony of the whole society.

If dishonesty and cheating in examinations are not curbed, now, sooner or later, graduates of our school systems will become half-baked, ignorant, non-performers, cheats, and awkward. Elatedly is the effect on the certificates issued by our schools.
It is not difficult to prognosticate that unless something serious is done to check various anti-social behaviours and their disruptive effects, certificates issued by educational institutions in Nigeria may not be worth more than the paper on which they are written, not only in foreign countries but also in Nigeria.
An increase in the incidence of anti-social behaviour will lead to our schools not producing truly educated individuals. Education is meant to produce effective and Functional individuals, both for the improvement in the quality of life of the society and its growth., Anti-social behaviour is antithetical to such educational goals.
If a serious effort is not made to control and eradicate anti-social behaviour among our students, technological breakthroughs, and social, economic, and scientific advancements, which are direct products of an honest, committed, and efficient educational system, will continue to be a mirage in Nigeria.
FinallyifIf the upward trend in anti-social behaviour among our students is not controlled, the quality of education in Nigeria, reciprocally, will continue to slide downwards.

Anti-social behaviour could be effectively managed in our schools through the following approaches:

Respect for the students’ dignity: teachers should communicate displeasure with the behaviour, not with the offending student as a human being.
The causes of misbehaviour should be addressed, not the symptoms. Teachers should not wait until anti-social behaviour is exhibited by their students before taking steps to forestall it.
School authorities’ responses should be consistent and fair. They should also make use of enforceable rules and regulations.
Class teachers should strive to know the students by name and use students’ names in the context of lessons, e.g. when a student is not paying attention or engaged in minor misbehaviour.
Effective and functional Guidance and Counselling Units should be established in our schools and colleges.
Well-designed moral education program curriculum should be taught at all levels of our educational system. This also implies that teachers have to undergo periodic training and retraining in moral education.
Teachers and school authorities must lead by good examples and be good models to be imitated by their students.
Decree 20 of 1985 on examination malpractices needs to be revamped and its provisions courageously implemented. In the same vein, Decree 4 of 1989, which makes it an offence for anyone to belong to any campus cult, should therefore be the Decree provided for a five-year jail term or N50,000 fine for anyone who violates it.
Specialisation agencies like homes (parents) and religious organisations should be more alive to their responsibilities to inculcate appropriate behaviours into our youth., They should go back to the drawing board to re-address their primary roles in the moral training of the adolescents and the youths.
Concerted efforts should be made to revamp the country’s economy. The prevailing economic depression which the countries have is telling effects on virtually all sectors of society should be seriously addressed. There is no denying the fact that the educational sector is one of the worst hit by this economic downturn. The government should therefore find means of alleviating the burden of education by pumping more means of alleviating the burdens of education by pumping more funds into the educational sector to meet its (educational sector) ever-increasing demands.

Conclusion

The incidence of anti-social behaviour is obviously on the increase now than ever before among students in Nigeria. Cultural diffusion, rapid socio-technological changes in Nigeria, and the seemingly inadvertent neglect of the primary role of moral upbringing of children by their parents are exacerbating the problems of anti-social behaviour among our students and youths.

Also, the prevalent economic depression in the country, which has increased the level of poverty of its citizens, has contributed in no small measure to the engendering of anti-social behaviour among Nigerian students because the educational sector happens to be the worst hit.

The future of education in Nigeria may therefore be in serious jeopardy unless pertinent steps, as earlier suggested in the course of this lecture, are taken urgently to control or eradicate anti-social behaviour among our students. Read further on this page.