Mental illness eating up our students

The rate at which students are involved in dubious and atrocious acts in the recent past may be an alarm sounding so loud about the need for our education system to address emotional and psychosocial issues. In July for example, a Senior Two student of Nyaruhanga High School in Rubanda District was killed by fellow students over a missing school bag when students of Rubanda High School stormed the deceased’s school, accusing him of stealing the bag (source:URN).

Last year, an angered Senior Five student of a popular school in Entebbe allegedly killed his colleague after the deceased failed to return his percolator. The two got into a scuffle during which the deceased slid off the dormitory verandah, hit his head on the floor and died.

In a country where students spend more than 18 years being groomed in schools — including a critical time of their childhood and youthful years of character and personality building, it is only important that the stakeholders take social and emotional learning seriously.

A Senior Five student identified only as David (to be able to speak at liberty) is another of the many students battling with mental illness. He has been in Butabika Mental Hospital battling an addiction to drug abuse, which he says he started abusing while in Senior Three.

I did not grow up with both my parents and I think that is a wound I will always carry —not that they are dead, but I think they did not want me to be a burden. My aunt has been my guardian since Primary Four. I am thankful but she always makes it a point to remind and abuse me every time about how dire my situation was and how thankful I should be that she saved me from my family’s poverty and given me an education,” he explains.
Because of all the bitterness bottled up inside, David has always been a silent but troubled student, with his grades low, and intentions dark.

“I have been in boarding school from Primary Six up to when I left school in Senior Five because of the addiction. I started using drugs during holidays, just to help take my mind off what was going on in my life and gradually, I could not live without them. What is sadder, however, is that neither at school nor home has anyone ever asked me what my problem is really. This is the second time I am talking about this with anyone. First it was with my counsellor at Butabika,” he says.
Evidently, school pays little attention to such challenges that students may be internally facing and yet education should be wholesome.

Counselling needed
James Amatre, an educator and consultant at Nabisunsa Girls Secondary School, notes that when talking about or providing education, we must think about the 3Hs; education of the heart, head and hands.
“Education of the heart is to do with emotional and psychological issues such as; tolerance, friendship, sharing, compassion, self-control, care, attitude to people and to life. That of the hands is to do with hands on skills while the head is about academics,” he explains, noting that in the traditional school setting, public schools used to give that all-round education which is no longer the case.

“Today, emphasis is on education of the head —too much academics, too many exams and content, so students have knowledge but with no emotional values at all, meaning our education is incomplete,” Amatre says.
This has left learners without knowing how to handle and solve their problems, relate to the environment and surrounding.

Way forward
John Baptist Serwaga, an educator at the Uhuru Institute of Social Development, noted that creating programmes and activities in the school /classroom setting that enable students to relate and express their opinions, attitudes and emotions towards social issues is one way to go.

“But even before a policy is put in place, as a teacher, this is something that you can incorporate in your class as you teach. It could just be giving attention to that disturbed student in your class to talk to them about their behaviour, feelings, and attitudes or just to understand what they are going through emotionally,” he says.

Diversify in teaching
At a policy level, Amatre thinks the Ministry of Education and Sports should incorporate policy pronouncement in schools to gazette time for sports, Physical Education, annual activities such as interschool drama festivals that help students express themselves freely. “But also, our assessment system should give marks to those activities so that they are taken seriously,” he says.

Additionally, Kenya is yet to roll out a new competence-based curriculum to help curb some of the social issues students grapple with.
One of the guiding principles of this curriculum will be community service learning that: “Integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.

Learners will work on real problems in order to make their academic learning relevant, while at the same time enhancing their social skills, analytical ability, civic and ethical responsibility, self-efficacy, and career development.” (Source: Why, What and How of Competency-Based Curriculum Reforms: The Kenyan Experience).

Therefore, whether with baby steps such as teacher engagement in emotional development of students or with big strides such as Kenya is taking, social emotional learning is another of the many aspects education should be covering.

A known problem
According to ‘Guide for policy makers: Improving learning for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties’ a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, mental health disorders are estimated at 13.4 per cent at a worldwide prevalence and a significant proportion falling in the category of SEBD.

These difficulties can be externalised or internalised with externalised behaviours such as (conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) more prevalently identified in boys and internalised behaviours (such as depression, self-harm and anxiety) more prevalently identified among girls, the report states in part.

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