The State must take an interest in the way children are raised

Up until around the early 1980s, adults other than parents could chastise children they found in the wrong. Uncles could reprimand nephews or nieces if they found them in the wrong. The wrongdoing could be leaving livestock to destroy crops, truancy, disrespectful behaviour, petty theft, bullying and other delinquencies.

The nephews and nieces didn’t report to their parents that they had been reprimanded. The parents could punish them anew, to affirm the action of the brothers or cousins.

Today, chastising a child other than your own is unthinkable. The unwritten rule here is: “thou shall not reprimand a child who is not your own. The wrongdoing of a child other than yours is not your business.”

The care of a child is now the exclusive preserve of the parents or guardians. Moral education is now an exclusively household affair.

Under the old order, rearing of children was a communal affair. The informal education structures that defined the growth and development of children were shared by every adult, household and village. Every one was a teacher to children and any member of the society younger than him or her. People communicated knowledge, skills, attitudes and values as occasion demanded to the ignorant or less experienced.

The community censored unruly behaviour. It didn’t matter the age of the person: impunity of any kind was met with unstoppable sanctions—mainly a beating of one kind or another.

There are some communities in this country which still beat up married men and women when they grossly transgress the codes of the communities and defy initial injunction to desist from the behaviour.

The community wishes to preserve its well being from behavior that threatens the established institutions to manage its safety and wellbeing.

Sadly, however, the authority and power the community had over its members has collapsed. The community doesn’t have power anymore on adults. Among the Luhya, an attempt to intervene in the affairs of a brother is repulsed with the statement: “You are not the one who feeds me. I feed myself and my family. There is nothing you can tell me!” This is a declaration of sovereignty. Freedom from control by others.

The same injunction extends to children. The care of children—character formation—is the exclusive sanctuary of the parents and guardians. Never mind whether they care about the good behavior or otherwise of the children. Never mind whether they themselves are models of good behavior. The point is: the care of children is the business of parents or guardians. The community can go to hell.

This is the status quo. The curriculum children experience in the wider world—outside the school—has no moral foundations whatsoever. If it is there, it is on a faltering ground. Methinks, the state should be reinforcing the inculcation of morals in children through institutions available to it.

Moral education refers to helping children acquire those virtues or moral habits that will help them individually live good lives and at the same time become productive, contributing members of their communities.

The state should put at the centre of the curriculum, the moral dimension of schooling. Mental or intellectual power—be it founded on academic, vocational or talent—without moral probity—is less useful to the individual and the society as whole.

Focus on moral virtue or good behaviour does not stop focusing on intellectual virtue. It cannot affect a school’s academic excellence. In fact, the meaningfulness that seamlessly occurs in the students’ appreciation of life is likely to improve their motivation for the academic dimension of the school.

It will mean diminished truancy and delinquency. Over the years, schools have been able to develop in the young both the intellectual and the moral virtues. Concern for the moral virtues, such as honesty, responsibility, and respect for others, is the domain of moral education.

Moral or character education has attracted great thinkers in education. Thinkers ranging from Plato, Aristotle, John Milton, John Locke. Micheal Montaigne and Horace Mann. All these thinkers stressed the need for moral education in their respective educational philosophies.

They saw morals or virtue as the fountainhead of the cohesion of the community. It is not intellectual power that holds society together. Rather, it is moral virtues—honesty, responsibility, respect for others, sacrifice, forbearance—that holds society together and keeps it going.

Ultimately, the safety and wellbeing of the society depends on moral virtue and less on the intelligence of the members of that society, however important high intelligence may be. Intelligence serves other purposes in society or institutions different from virtue.
Intelligence with character makes strong institutions and nations. Intelligence without character does not just prevent institutions and nations with potential to grow; it progressively weakens the foundations of those already strong.

This is the reason why the state should invest more in moral education. It shouldn’t leave the moral upbringing of children to parents alone. The environment is far too complex and confusing to parents. By stepping in, it is helping itself. It will, in the long run, get morally sturdier people to run its affairs—as leaders and as citizens.