EDUCATION: Combatting Violence in the Schools

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 21 2003 (IPS) - Violence is growing in schools in many countries around the world, although in different forms and to varying degrees, said experts at the World Education Forum, which ends Wednesday in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

Miriam Abramovai, a professor at the Catholic University in Brasilia and the co-author of a study on violence in Brazilian schools, said ”this is not a Brazilian or Latin American phenomenon, but a globalised one” that is growing in North America, Europe and other regions as well.

The violence, reflected in the latest studies carried out in dozens of countries, is a ”social symptom” that worsened in the 1990s, particularly in countries experiencing a sort of ”belated development of capitalism,” characterised by the ”rupture of social ties” and breakdown of the social fabric, said José Vicente Tavares, with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Both researchers were speakers at a seminar on ”Violence in the Schools” sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as part of the World Education Forum, which began on Sunday.

The gathering, in which 785 papers and reports were discussed by 20,000 people in 60 seminars, workshops and panels, forms part of the run-up to the World Social Forum (WSF), which will hold its third edition from Jan 23-28 in Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The WSF is held annually as a sort of counterpoint to the World Economic Forum which meets in the Swiss resort town of Davos every year.

Abramovai’s study shed light on how students, parents and teachers perceive the violence, which includes threats against teachers, vandalism, youth gang fights, and shootings.

In addition, eight percent of the students interviewed by the study authors said they had witnessed episodes of sexual violence in school.

Like in the United States and other countries, the issue of violence in educational centres has caused alarm in recent years in Brazil due to several murders of students and teachers.

UNESCO, which sponsored the study, is promoting cultural, sports and recreational activities as part of a strategy to fight violence, in which young people and the broader local community are drawn into weekend activities in local schools around Brazil.

The programme, ”Opening Spaces”, has been implemented in around 1,000 schools in six Brazilian states, and already involves some 500,000 people. It has contributed to a major drop in violent incidents.

Brazil’s new Education Minister, Cristovam Buarque, announced at the seminar on violence in schools that he would expand the programme into a nationwide initiative.

But the most dramatic cases of violence in schools around the world were described in the panel on ”Education in Conflict Zones” by professors and researchers from Angola and Colombia.

Angola’s 27 years of civil war left hundreds of thousands dead and disabled, while Colombia remains caught in the grip of a complex situation of social and political violence whose origins date back to the middle of the 20th century.

Schools are among the main victims of violence in Colombia, with thousands of teachers murdered or forced to leave their homes and jobs by constant threats from irregular armed groups, said María del Pilar Rubio.

There are two markedly different realities in Colombia, Ramón Moncada, an expert with the non-governmental organisation Corporación Región from Medellin in northwestern Colombia, explained to IPS after taking part in the session on ”The City and Education”.

One is the reality of the countryside and the remote mountain regions which are the main scenario of the fighting between government troops, left-wing guerrillas, and the rightist paramilitary groups that were created to fight the insurgents but were later outlawed due to their gross violations of human rights.

The massive forced displacement of local populations caught in the crossfire often leaves teachers ”without students,” said Moncada.

But teachers also suffer direct pressure, in the form of death threats or murders, ”because one of the armed groups does not accept their neutrality,” or wants to dictate the content of what they teach.

Most of the murders of teachers are committed by the paramilitary groups, according to complaints filed with the teachers’ union in Colombia.

The other Colombia is found in the cities, especially the largest ones like Bogota, Medellin and Cali, where many students are involved in gangs that use the schools as ”trenches” in their ”frequent shoot-outs” with rival groups, said Moncada.

He pointed out that the presence of youth gangs often makes it impossible for teachers to stand up to threats by students who demand a passing grade or to be let off the hook when they cause trouble.

Due to the day-to-day violence suffered by teachers in Colombia, the government has made psychological counseling available to them.

Moncada lamented that teachers and school principals can do little to combat the violence, because it is the result of ”outside factors.”

Any in-depth solution to the problem of violence in Colombia would require the start of peace talks between the right-wing government of Alvaro Uribe, the rebels, and the paramilitaries, as well as effective public safety and disarmament policies in the cities, he argued.

Nevertheless, localised initiatives have been put into effect, like a plan of ”coexistence in the schools” developed by Corporación Región in 15 high schools.

The programme draws youth gangs into discussions on the possibility of negotiating ”pacts of mutual respect,” and on the need for schools to be ”neutral territory,” Moncada said in his interview with IPS.

Another successful programme aimed at converting schools into havens of peace and spaces for the development of young people is run by María Helena da Silva Ramos in a school in Duque de Caxias, a city of 700,000 on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

The school, which had a reputation as one of Brazil’s most violent, now provides sports activities and classes in music, painting, dance and other arts as part of a programme that incorporates the entire local population.

”We did this without knowing that it was a UNESCO-style innovative initiative,” Silva Ramos told participants at the seminar on violence in schools.

Abramovai’s study, meanwhile, underlined that the violence in schools is mainly a consequence of the local surroundings, where youth gangs and drug dealers are active, she told the seminar.

Her study identified several factors contributing to the violence, such as sales of alcohol within 300 metres of the schools, which is illegal, and drug trafficking activity.

In the survey carried out among 33,655 students, 10,225 parents, and 3,099 teachers in 14 state capitals in Brazil, 55 percent of the students interviewed said they knew where to buy a firearm, and 51 percent said they currently owned a gun or had one in the past.

The authors also identified ”internal factors,” such as the absence of dialogue and communication in the schools, and the frustration of students’ hopes and dreams. Many youngsters said they ”hated going to class,” while 41 percent of the teachers said they did not like their students, said Abramovai.