For those who have underrated the spate of indiscipline among youth especially students, what unfolded in a few schools named withheld in the Kanifing Region last week should have them review their rating of the situation.
What students of the junior and senior schools did last week to individuals is beyond imagination. The fury in the rioters as they carried out what appeared like a well-rehearsed act of insanity attracted the ire of many who watched their attitudes.
Coming on the heels of the few schools misconduct recently points at a worrying trend in the upbringing of children in society today.
The picture could have been worse but for the intervention of police officers deployed to the scene. Fortunately, no bones were broken, and the security personnel carried out the task successfully although the few attacked were left with a bitter taste in the palates of school authorities and residents of the area, not forgetting the country in general.
At this stage, a committee should be empanelled to probe the incident and appropriate punitive action visited upon the culprits.
We should start sending out messages to the youth and even adults that the Gambia is not a failed state where anybody can do as they, please.
The laws of this country are working and those who flout them should be made to endure the appropriate sanctions as of course prescribed by law.
The lame reason for embarking on the act of insanity needs to be studied by school management and this will help identify the student.
We are compelled to agree with a remark of somebody who said with the level of indiscipline in the school the results students are getting are appropriate for them.
There is a dearth of discipline in our schools, from primary to tertiary institutions, and social media and the possession of smartphones contribute somewhat to the anomaly.
If the appropriate deterrent measures are not taken against the ring leaders in the destruction of private and state vehicles, the nonsense will be replicated elsewhere. We cannot and should not tolerate acts of indiscipline, especially the youth because it is a slow destruction of the future of the country for which posterity would not forgive us.
We hope that there would be no intervention from any quarter when the whip is cracked on the bad students.
Acts of indiscipline, when they are seen, should be stopped by both parents and teachers before they escalate to the level of destruction of property as witnessed in the school under review.
The students in question, we can guess, are between 16 and 20, too young to be seen engaged in such acts.
Only a probe would unearth what informed the nonsense from these young students who are future threats to national security.