Discipline problem in school: Initiative of SMK Sri Istana (SMKSI), Klang.

this assignment will be submitted to pn Syarifah Muzlia for EDU 646, Current issues in education.
please comment..


Discipline problem in school: Initiative of SMK Sri Istana (SMKSI), Klang.

Introduction

            Discipline problem is a phenomenon in every school in Malaysia. The reason is the students comes from different socioeconomic background, level of cognitive, and socio emotion.  The development of the community also influences the discipline problem in school. Nowadays, the discipline problems become uncontrollable and complex. There are four categories for discipline problem as follow (Mok Soon Sang,2009):

Category	Type of discipline problem
Crime	Vandalism, thief, gambling, fighting, bullying, Drug abuse, drawing or writing nude comment, and fighting with teacher.
Negative behavior	Long hair, wearing colored shoes and stoking, wearing T-shirt to school, long nail, smoking, rude, talking using dialect, did not respect the teacher, eat in the classroom, bullying, did not bring book to school, and did not finish the homework.
Absenteeism	Did not come to school, class, co curriculum activity, late to school, eating in the canteen during class hour, did not attend the assembly and sleeping in the class.
Lying	Copying during exam, copying other’s homework, did not submit the homework, signature on behalf of their parents, lying and pretending to sick.

A to Z initiative in SMK Sri Istana Klang related to the discipline problem.

A-   Administrative involvement

            Principal is the most important figure in every issues related with the school. In general, the Principal is the head of the school. This person is wholly in-charge of office management, financial matters, staffs, academic and co-curriculum. The Principal is responsible for the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum and then to ensure its implementation is parallel with the Ministry of Education Policy.

The Principal is also responsible for the school management, organization, and school’s financial affairs. Together with that, it is the duty of the Principal to create a two-way communication between the community and other agencies within the nation. Finally, the Principal is expected to teach certain amount of times (teaching periods) according to the 3/67 1982 policy.

The chart above is the top administration hierarchy in SMK Sri Istana. Through my observation, every of them had play their own role in order to control the discipline problem in school. Pn Hjh Mawarni is very close to student. In fact, she always call the ‘black listed’ student to her office. She explores each aspect of the students from the family background, social activities, and other issues related to the students. The interesting part of her conversation with every student is; she will set an agreement with them. For example, a hand phone was raided during a spot check by the discipline board. One who want their hand phone back have to refer to the Principal. Pn Hjh Mawarni will give back the hand phone if and only if the student complies with some of agreement. That is her way and I am proud to know that the most problematic student claimed that “ pengetua lebih sayang saya daripada orang lain” . I look at the method from the positive perspective.

The method complied by the afternoon supervisor is a little bit different from hjh Mawarni. En Hijazi prefer the aggressive approaches, but it still acceptable and did not exceed the humanitarian limit. In one case, he himself waiting and peeping at the school canteen for a week just to catch the unknown burglar who broke in into the school canteen. At the day he nearly catch the burglar, the security guard (who is know nothing about En Hijazi’s undercover) had  alert the burglar and he finally run away. I really proud to have En Hijazi as an afternoon supervisor as he is so committed and readiness do anything for the sake of SMK Sri Istana.

B-   Board of discipline and student prefect

            Board of discipline is a special board to look into students discipline with the help from every teacher and school prefect. In the School Discipline Board, Principal is at the top as the advisor and assisted by the afternoon supervisor. The Senior Assistant 2 (Students Affair) is the one who fully take charge on the student’s issues.

The Senior Assistant 2 (Students’ Affairs) is responsible for all things related to students’ affairs including discipline, counseling, students’ activities, facilities for students etc. This person will also be the person in-charge of Principal’s and Senior Assistant 1’s posts whenever needed.

The disciplinary board is helped by the students’ prefect. The selected students, who have capability to be a leader, will help the school especially in controlling the behavior of their peers. Without them, Disciplinary Board cannot work effectively due to the limited number of discipline teacher in school. In SMK Sri Istana, the prefect was trained in a Leadership Camp and they are supervised by the Discipline teacher.

C-   Co curriculum activity

Co-curriculum had been implemented long time ago before independent day of our country. The implementation of co-curriculum policy was started in 1956 in National Education Policy 1956 .The policy being improved in Razak Report 1956, Education ordinance 1952/1957,Rahman Talib Report 1960 and Education Act 1961. On 1957, ministry had provided a guideline for school tour. School tours were considered as part of extracurricular activity and this guideline based on the Education Ordinance, 1957.

In SMK Sri Istana, the co curriculum activity was conducted based on the guideline provided by the Ministry of Education. There were three categories of co curriculum activities sports and games, club and association, and uniform organization. In my observation in SMK Sri Istana, I found that the student participate actively in the co curricular activity. Most of the ‘black listed’ students will change their character in the co curriculum activity especially in uniform body. The teacher that control the uniform unit is the discipline teacher and I realized that he can play his role better through this co curriculum activities.

During my practicum, I had organized a trip for my students to do a marching performance in UiTM. During the training, the teacher warn the student; “ Amir, saya tak akan benarkan awak masuk, kalau awak ponteng kelas lagi, Shah, kalau awak nak terus masuk dalam pertandingan(persembahan) ini, awak jangan buat perkara yang pelik-pelik di sekolah. Saya serius ni. Saya tahu awak merokok, jangan sampai saya dapat tahu awak merokok semasa latihan ataupun semasa kat UiTM nanti”. From my observation, the message delivered in this training session is more effective rather than during school hour, although by the same teacher.

Amazingly, the student will tight in their shirt during marching but not doing so when wearing school uniform. They cut their hair short, voluntarily just because they want to be in the marching team compared to the spot check time at the school. I realized that the co curriculum can be an effective way to control the students discipline especially for the ‘black listed students’.

D-   Demerit system

            Demerit system is one of the systems introduced by Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri (JPN) to reduce the discipline problem in school. In this system, misbehavior conducted by the students will be recorded and the student will get “demerit” points regarding to the type of disobedience. The point accumulated by the student will be evaluated every month and the punishment is based on the demerit point gained by the students.

            The table below is the punishment for the student based on their demerit point (Mok Soon Sang, 2009).

Garis Panduan Hukuman/ ganjaran
Mata Demerit
10 mata	Merotan 1 kali
20 mata	Merotan 1 kali/ menasihat/kelas tahanan
40 mata	Merotan 2 kali/ memberitahu ibu bapa/ kaunseling/surat jaminan murid/ kelas menahan
50 mata	Berhenti Sekolah seminggu/kaunseling/surat jaminan ibu bapa/ kelas tahanan
80 mata	Berhenti Sekolah dua minggu / kaunseling/ surat jaminan ibu bapa/ kelas Tahanan
Mata Merit
2-5 mata	Bagi kelakuan murid yang beransur baik, mata demerit yang dikumpulkan boleh dikurangkan daripada mata merit yang diperolehinya.
Malebihi 5 mata	Guru mesti mendapat pendangan jawatankuasa disiplin Sekolah terlebih dahulu, sekiranya ingin member mata merit yang melebihi 5 mata.

            SMK Sri Istana also implements this “demerit” system to control the student’s discipline. Every teacher, especially class teacher have the power to demerit the students according to their disobedient. The lowest demerit point is 2 (The examples are did not bring books to school, did not complete the homework, late to school and etc) and the maximum point is 30 point (Scolding the teacher, scolding the on duty prefect and etc).

            During my practicum, the discipline teacher explains about the demerit point gained by the student in the morning assembly. According to him, almost all of the male Form 5 students had reaches the highest demerit point. In the briefing , the school warn the students to behave themselves or if not they will be “ digantung sekolah”. From my eyes of view, this demerit system can be used to measure the level of discipline problem among the student and to control the students. But in order to make it efficient, cooperation among all teachers is needed.

E-   Ex student involvement

Most of the ex-students are voluntarily involved as the trainer in co curriculum activities. This positive value helps the school to make the controlling students discipline using co curriculum activity approaches more effective.

F-   Factors

There were many factors contributing to the discipline issues. Some of the factors are listed below (Mok Soon Sang ,2009):

·         Teaching and Learning- students cognitive development did not at the same level as the subject, teacher did not attractive to the students, teaching aid did not capture students interest.

·         Personal- poverty, family problem, influence by peers, environmental stress and etc.

·         Mental- illiterate, problem in reading, writing and arithmetic, mental problem, and other problem.

·         Physical- working part time and sleepy in school, did not get enough diet, and any physical problem.

·         Psychology- phobia, low esteem, identity confusion and other psychological phenomenon.

From my observation in SMK Sri Istana, most of the discipline problems come from the personal and family problem, followed by the teaching and learning factors. In order to solve the problem, the first and important step is to know the causes.

G-   Group mentoring

            Students tend to be in their group especially the ‘black listed’ students. teachers aware on this phenomenon and they make use of this grouping behavior to control the students. in my observation, school will focus on the leader of the group and give more effort to them without neglecting the others. This strategy is effective because when the leader is under control, he will then influence the other follower (in his group). This is a smart strategy that suggested by the most counselor especially SMK Sri Istana counselor.

            Besides that, the group mentoring also enables the teacher to solve some of the fighting cases. The formula is simple; caught one student, and you will get the entire student involved on the cases. The fighting cases in school are based on the group and gang. Even if they have a small private problem, they will call the entire group to ‘help’.

           

H-   Holistic approaches

“Pendidikan di Malaysia adalah satu usaha berterusan ke arah memperkembangkan potensi individu secara menyeluruh dan bersepadu untuk melahirkan insan yang seimbang dan harmonis dari segi intelek, rohani, emosi dan jasmani berdasarkan kepercayaan dan kepatuhan kepada Tuhan. Usaha ini adalah bertujuan untuk melahirkan warganegara Malaysia yang berilmu pengetahuan,berketrampilan, berakhlak mulia, bertanggungjawab dan berkeupayaan mencapai kesejahteraan diri serta member sumbangan terhadap keharmonian dan kemakmuran keluarga masyarakat dan negara.

(Akta Pendidikan 1996)”

In order to comply with national education policy to develop student in holistic approaches, SMKSI also tried to combine the intellectual, emotional, physical and religious aspect in every single approaches in controlling the discipline problem.

I-     Islamic approaches

            In SMK Sri Istana, Department of Social Science had designed a religious assembly every Friday morning. For the Muslim students, the activities will be rotated between reciting al-Quran, reading al-Matsurat and tazkirah. For the non Muslim students, there will be a session according to their belief and will be conducted by their Christian, Buddhist or Hindu teacher. The attendance is compulsory and the assembly will take from 7.20am to 8.10am.

            School uses this platform to reduce the discipline problem through the religious method. Special prayer, Yaasin recitation and solat hajat for ‘keep the school clean from any problem and to change the problematic students’ is one of the alternatives. They also invite good speaker to motivate the students to be a good believer. This is a holistic approach and seems to be effective. This initiative comes from teacher’s ideas and it gets approval from JPN to conduct the activity.

J-    Joint venture programmed and social activity

            The responsibility to control the students discipline cannot be fully charged on the teachers’ responsibility. Parents and society also plays an important role to make sure there were balance stressors for students to be discipline. In SMK Sri Istana, there was a NGO named ‘Persatuan Hunafa’ who is actively played their role to cater this issues. During my practicum, the ‘Persatuan Hunafa’ sponsor a program specially designed for the ‘black listed’ students. the problem consist of three phase; in phase one, all of the students have to attend three day camp for free. For the second phase, the student must go back to their school and do a beneficial project such as planning a computer class, managing a science park, plant tree in the school compound, painting the school and etc. The third phase, the NGO will sponsor the student to a vacation but they must complete their project and change in their behavior.

            From my observation, this is an effective way, give them input and reason why they must to improve, let them pay back to the school and make them proud and love to their school, and the last part is giving reward if and only if they complete their project and change their discipline. But the only reason why this initiative cannot be carried out effectively is due to the financial limit. Thank to the ‘Persatuan Hunafa’ for at least plays the community role and minimize the school burden in controlling the students.

K-   Knowledge based approaches.

Every department in SMKSI conduct their internal activity such as environmental week, science exhibition, social science week and etc. Through these activities, they provide the students with the extra information and knowledge outside the class. This activities can stimulates student interest in learning, and make them filling their time with school project rather than wasting it.

L-   Log book

            Every class in SMK Sri Istana is provided with a log book. The log book is the second attendance book to prevent absenteeism and truancy. Every teacher need to sign in the log book as they enter the class according to their period. At the log book, there were three column; name of the teacher, subject taught, activity in class/topic, attendance, condition of the class, signature and remarks. In the ‘remarks’ column, the teacher need to write any problem occurs during the teaching and learning process. This log book is mean to control the behavior of the students and top prevent truancy.

            The log book is then submitted to the Senior Assistant 1 (HEA) for further action.

M-  Meeting and discussion

            Principal of SMKSI always remind the teachers that; “every problem can be solved and we need to sit together and discuss to find the best solution”. She applied the concept in every problem related to the teacher, school management and also to solve the problem among students. She prefers to solve any problem with discussion. She will discuss with the students about their fault, and get the factors behind it. Then she set an agreement with the student to follow. Then, she will discuss the issues with the teacher in the weekly meeting. She explain her approaches and seek for other suggestion from other teachers. For the big cases, she will call the parent and set a talk for the benefit of their son.

            From my observation, not all the teacher agrees with her approaches at first. But, as the time pass, most of the teacher accept her approaches and give their full support and cooperation. I can see that this psychological approach is better than aggressive physical punishment.

N-   A new student who comes from other school will be watched closely by the teacher to prevent him from contributing new problem in the school.

O-   Other relevance parties (Security officer, canteen contractor)

Security officer and canteen operator also plays their role in controlling student’s discipline. In one cases, I saw the security guard refuse to open the main gate for the students to go out in school hour. This shows that the school security guard also plays their important role in controlling student’s discipline.

For the canteen operator, they refused to sell food if the students come not in the recess time. They also take initiative to hang up positive poster in the canteen to promote healthy school environment. These phenomenon shows me that the discipline problem is not only responsibility of the parents and the teacher, but it also the responsibility of other parties.

P-   Parent and teacher association (PTA/ PIBG)

            PTA in SMKSI was established to help the school organization especially in terms of financial. This is to enhance the academic, co-curriculum, discipline and attitude development. In addition, the PTA also helps the school administration to find solution to whatever problems regarding the children. The PTA also aids the school especially the facilities and necessities to produce a more conducive school environment. PTA in SMKSI helps to run programs or projects (academic and co-curricular) and look for extra funding.

The PTA and the school management share a strong link/bond as to update the parents with their children’s achievement and report. Thus, there will be at least one or two members from the PTA (parents) who attend the weekly staff meeting on every Thursday (12.30-1.15pm). This is to ensure that the parents get the update of school’s activities and any relevant matters regarding the field of interest. Among other roles for PTA in SMKSI are:

·         To activate the PTA meeting regularly,

·         To use the PTA as a resource, and

·         To encourage parents to come to school, discussing children’s academic and discipline matters with teachers.

The chart above is the organization chart of the PTA SMK Sri Istana. From my observation, PTA plays their role in the discipline issues in the school. But they only can give support to the school in the term of fund, support school program, and give cooperation if asked to do so. The limitation of PTA role is due to lack of awareness among the parents to their responsibility to work with the school and not burden the disciplinary task to the school only.

During my observation, there were some cases the parents come to school to take their own action on the student if their son is being bullied. There were two cases happened in front of my eyes. The first incident, a mother come to school and scolding a student who is accused to bully her daughter. The second incident, a brother comes to school to defend his sister from being slap by a boy. This is not the exact way to solve the problem; they should refer to the school teacher and not put the law aside. Educate the parents to be discipline is a must to make sure their son also being discipline.

Q-   Quality of teacher

            Teacher plays an important role in this discipline issues. There were significant relationships between classroom management and students discipline. The relationship is shown as below:

                         

Effective classroom management is needed to make teaching and learning activity become systematic and effective. The conducive environment can only be achieved if the students follow the school rules and follow the teacher’s instruction.

During my practicum, I caught some of the students who loitering at the toilet during class hour. When I asked them, why they do not enter the class, they answered “cikgu tu ajar boring la….subjek ni sahaja saya ponteng. Subjek lain saya masuk kelas”

In order to solve this problem, teacher must realized that their teaching process also influence the discipline problem. SMK Sri Istana conducts in-house training for the teacher to make sure the teaching process going effectively. LADAP or ‘Latihan Dalam Perkhidmatan’ is one of the courses that compulsory for the teacher to enhance their teaching credibility. The following table shows the LADAP schedule on 2009:

Program	Date	Notes
LADAP I	18 July 2009	Effective communication skill
LADAP II	25 July 2009	School Management

R-   Reward and punishment strategy to comply with B.F Skinner ideas.

S-   Sports and tournament approaches to built the students self confident and control their discipline.

T-   All teachers and administrative staff play their respective role and support the school initiatives.

U-   ‘Unit Bimbingan dan Kaunseling’ approaches

Counselors in ‘Unit bimbingan dan kaunseling (UBK)’ are the referral person in every students discipline problem faced by the teacher. UBK also responsible to manage the program related to the student development and discipline awareness.

V-   Vandalism

            Vandalism is one of the discipline issues in school. In SMK Sri Istana, only one toilet open for the students and the teacher’s toilet need to be lock. This is to control vandalism and to prevent waste in the water supply. During my practicum, the first week, there were no doors for each cubical, due to the vandalism. In the fourth week, the water supply being suspended by the principal. This is because the 2 week aged tab pipe was destroyed by the students. There was no water for the one week. To solve this problem, principal give one week trial and warn the students in the assembly that, “the toilet will never get watered if the vandalism did not stop”. Thank God, now the toilet can be used without any problem.

            There were many cases regarding the vandalism of school facilities. In some cases, principal put the responsibility to the class teacher to control the facilities in their classroom. The teachers have to fill in inventory form and each facility was labeled according to the student (user). They also responsible to other facilities in their class such as white board, projector, notice board, lamp, fan and etc.

W-  Watch and alert

            Weekly meeting for teacher in SMK Sri Istana is conducted every Thursday 12.30 to 2.10 pm. During this meeting, every aspect of the school management, teacher’s activities and student’s issues is being discussed. During my practicum, the principal remind the entire teacher to alert with any problem related with their students. She reminds that all of the problem can be solved, but teacher must help them in solving their problem.

            She also notifies the current discipline problems and the action taken by school to solve the problem. She always reminds the teacher to help her watching some students and give report on their attitude because the student had made an agreement with her. By doing this, all of the teacher will keep their eye on the specific student in that week.

X-   X-ray (monthly spot check)

            SMK Sri Istana conducts weekly assembly from 7.20am to 8.10am. But, the exact time for the assembly is being extended until 8.20am for informal briefing and spot check. The weekly spot check is aimed to control the minor mistake such as long hair, bread, did not wear school uniform, incomplete school uniform, wearing any jeweler and other ‘Type C fault’ (Mok Soon Sang, 2009). Discipline teacher and teacher on duty is responsible for this weekly spot check. The prefect also plays their role to check the students.

            Once a month, SMKSI will conduct a spot check from class to class. This operation did not involve the student prefect and the operation is done within the class time. The results of this operation include cigarette, mobile phone, game player, VCD, magazines, and etc. Conducting the spot check can be an effective way to control the discipline problem among students.

Y-   Youth psychology

Every approaches taken by school to control the discipline problem is based on the psychological theory. The teachers need to master the theory and apply the best theory according to the background of the students and the problems. In SMK Sri Istana, the counselor will help the teacher to find the best approach to apply. The school management also invite speakers to broaden teachers perspective about psychological approaches in solving the problem.

           

Z-   Zero discipline problem

Zero discipline problems were the ideal school environment. It is impossible to get it because the factors that contribute to the problems is come from many aspect; students, parents, teachers, environment, society and etc. The best way we can do is to control the students discipline in whatever method that we have faith to the successfulness.

Conclusion

            The A to Z initiative of SMK Sri Istana in solving the discipline issues is based on writer’s opinion and experience during conducting practicum training in the school. This is not a complete write-up to explain every initiative taken by the school management to solve the discipline problem.  There was many more initiative taken by the committed school management. The important thing to be expressed in this writing is, every problem can be solved and there was not only by a single method. Various alternative can be done as long as every parties plays their roles. In SMKSI, they can have more than A to Z initiatives, but the important keys is the responsibility and cooperation from all parties.

Refferences

Badrunsham Dahalan, Menangani isu disiplin pelajar, Majalah Pendidik, (Bil 37/Jun 2007),, Widad Publication Sdn bhd

Dr Hasani Dali, 5 langkah bentuk ketegasan disiplin, Majalah Pendidik, (Bil 51/Ogos 2008), Widad Publication Sdn bhd

Ramlan Hamzah, Lily mastura harun (2006).Panduan Ulangkaji Bimbingan dan kaunseling untuk Prasarjana Muda dan KPLI, Kumpulan Budiman Sdn Bhd.

Mok Soon Sang (2009).Teks komprehensif PTK:Bahagian II: Khusus/ fungsional Pengajaran dan pembelajaran (P&P), Penerbitan Multimedia Sdn Bhd.

Appendices