alkuwaitiis generally considered a pacifist and a believer and a majority of them perform their religious duties in one way or another. a majority of women in the society wear either the hijab or the burqa usually black in color – an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some islamic traditions to cover themselves in public, which covers the body and the face.
the students in government schools are part of this society and are subject to almost the same standards and religious ratios that apply to the rest but there are scary numbers that show the opposite of what is seen on the surface.
many educational indicators show that there is a crisis of behavior among students in public schools. statistics released by the ministry of education revealed that the number of cases handled by social workers during the 2018/2019 scholastic year was 36,529 cases, which represents more than ten percent of the number of male and female students in all stages of general education with a ratio of nearly 2:1 for males and females respectively.
the report, published in the al-jarida newspaper showed a dangerous and unprecedented phenomenon. the female students by far outnumbered male students in a number of serious behavioral cases, although some behaviors such as smoking abound in males, which accounted for 1,425 cases, compared to 61 female students.
the study showed that the female students recorded 7,370 cases of verbal aggression against 5,920 male students, which came first at the school level, and 2,818 female students escaped classes, compared to 2,696 male students, while in terms of escape from school, the boys took the biggest share (572 cases) while only 11 girl students bunked classes.
it was noticeable that five cases of intoxication and drug abuse were recorded against female students, while this year’s record for boys was clean. the girl students outnumbered boys in theft cases by 233 compared to 92 for boys, but boys surpassed them in cheating in the exam by 314 against 193 and also scored higher in assault and harassment cases by 116 against 73 for female students.
from all this, it is possible for a non-specialist like me, to conclude the following things:
1 – the existence of manifestations of profound religious commitment in a society does not necessarily mean that the morals of its members are better than others, as evidenced by the ethics of the people of scandinavia, the least religious in the world, compared to the morals of most of our arabic countries, the most religious in the world.
global standards of ethics are not related to sexual matters, as is in our understanding, but to the extent of the commitment of the individual to work and perform properly and maintain public property, pay taxes in full, and participate in elections, and the good selection of representatives of the nation in the various councils, people of honesty and punctuality, and honesty in speaking and treatment, the preservation of the environment and much more, and almost all of these are irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of the masses.
2 – the bad and dangerous behaviors of male and female students cannot be separated, and the prevalence of cheating among males, in particular, is taking place in the arena. the consultative elections, for example, are a kind of fraud because they circumvent by-elections which are punishable by law.
3 – the behavior of a majority of male and female students is influenced by the behavior of their society, politically and socially. they hear and read daily about the issues of embezzlement and bribery and this drives them to cheat and rob each other and despise public money.
thus, we need to delve into teaching ethics rather than teaching religious subjects and increasing their importance and rather spend much more time teaching ethics.