I am sure almost everybody has seen the trending ‘School Days’ movie from our very own Malawian actresses and actors. I agree with the majority of people that say it is a great movie. Moreover, it is taking most of us back to when we were in secondary schools.
However, my focus is not on the movie entirely but the part where one of the male teachers was in a sexual relationship with a female student. I think it is important that the movie writer included that. It is also important how in the end the teacher lost his job and was put behind bars as a way of wanting to portray a lesson to others.
Blaming girls in school for engaging in sexual relations with a teacher or someone in power is unfair, particularly in secondary and primary schools. The power imbalance between students and teachers, especially male teachers, creates a vulnerable environment. To address this, the focus should be on educating and alerting girls about the wrongness of such relationships and encouraging reporting. The responsibility lies on those in power who take advantage of their position, manipulating and exploiting vulnerable students with false promises and threats, creating an unhealthy space.
These relations have different but many consequences to both the student and the teacher. For instance, the girl being pregnant which leads to her dropping out of school and struggling in different areas since it is an early/and an unwanted pregnancy. As for the latter, losing his job and facing the law as the Malawi Statement of Professional Ethics And Code of Conduct For Teachers condemns such types of teacher-student relationships.
Institutions, Organizations and the Government, should be in the forefront of spreading awareness in schools about the consequences and costs of teachers and students sexual relationships. As well as some females who are seen as role models, can speak to female students about this issue.
Most movies teach people a lesson or two about real life issues affecting people. Like in the School Days Movie, it showed the side effects of male teachers and girl students' sexual relationships which led to the girl being pregnant and the teacher losing his job and facing the law as compared to real life issues. There should be adequate awareness in all schools from Institutions and female role models.
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