Discipline is answer to bad behaviour

Walking around your school, is it common to hear your schoolmates talking impolitely? Every morning, is there a long queue of students who are late standing in front of disciplinary teachers? Every day after lunch, are you annoyed by the amount of rubbish left by your schoolmates on the school playground? If you answered 'yes' to any of the above, then would you agree the standard of discipline in schools is declining? Nowadays, youngsters are misbehaving more and more due to the influence of the media and the lack of ethics studies in schools .

To combat declining standards of discipline in schools, I think schools should make discipline a priority.

There is no doubt today's students are not as self-disciplined as those in the past. They are generally not so afraid of school regulations and teachers and even regard rules and teachers' advice as nonsense.

As a result, they follow the trend of society by behaving more outrageously instead of following the 'nonsense'.

Given this state of affairs, schools can do nothing but put more emphasis on discipline and regulations.

Only when students think school regulations will be strictly enforced will they obey them.

This seems to be an effective way to deter students from misbehaving.

If the standard of discipline in certain schools continues to fall, they will lose their good reputations.

Though some schools' students may be outstanding in their academic performance, they may not be outstanding in terms of behaviour.

In order to maintain their standards, these schools should concentrate on discipline and imposing more regulations.

In addition, the main aim of education is to cultivate students to be educated and self- disciplined citizens.

If we allow discipline in schools to decline, we cannot achieve this goal.

If students want to become well-behaved citizens in the future, they should follow school regulations at the expense of their freedom.

Shirley is a student of the Holy Family Canossian College