Introduction

Parental supervision refers to all the actions, attitudes and behaviours that parents adopt to monitor, guide and support their children in their physical, emotional, social and academic development. It implies an active and attentive presence by parents in their children’s lives, to protect, support and help them grow up and perform well at school. Nevertheless, this life-saving initiative is in full shortfall in Cameroon and is accompanied by countless abuses by learners. This article highlights the causes, manifestations and effects of this deficit, and suggests ways of remedying it.

Motives and Manifestations

Many parents are increasingly offloading their educational responsibilities onto teachers, whose primary role is to educate their offspring. The reasons for this lack of parental supervision include absence due to work, distance, laxity, lack of authority or educational incapacity. In practical terms, it translates into manifest negligence; very few parents look after their children’s physical and emotional safety. They barely offer them any emotional support or set clear limits, rules and expectations. What’s more is very few consult their notebooks, help them with their homework or prepare for their exams. How many listen to their children, talk to them, share their experiences, control their outings and, above all, their company? For the most part, these learners are abandoned to their fate, to the streets and to bad company, who take charge of their education in the direction of moral and social deviance.

Worrying Consequences

The lack of parental supervision is inevitably accompanied by countless abuses at school. Left to their own devices, learners face academic failure, absenteeism and lack of motivation. Without encouragement or family pressure, they lose interest in their studies, fall behind and, in some cases, drop out or play truant. This phenomenon is exacerbated by school dropouts, with young people who, lacking support, turn to premature work or informal activities. What’s more, this state of affairs leads to unorthodox and unhealthy behaviour that disrupts harmony within schools. This is particularly the case with school violence, both physical and verbal towards their teachers and fellow pupils – in particular stabbings, disrespect, insults, defiance, insubordination, assault and battery, harassment and fights. The degrading behaviour they inflict on themselves includes psychotropic drug use, gambling, orgies in the classroom or in private homes, to name but a few.

Conclusion 

The need for parents to take responsibility is urgent. It is clear that parental supervision, which is essential for the emotional balance, moral edification and academic success of learners, is in short supply in Cameroon. For various reasons, many parents are not involved in the moral, social and educational supervision of their offspring, exposing them to unprecedented abuses. Hence the urgent need to make parents more responsible through closer collaboration between families and schools, parental awareness campaigns and social support measures for learners in vulnerable situations.

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