The Sunday News
Simbarashe Murima
Love is a beautiful, emotional feeling, it is therapeutic, relieves stress by lowering levels of cortisol, blood pressure and increasing oxytocin levels, but not between students and lecturers.
It is natural for lecturers and students to be attracted to each other. However, the fiduciary relationship between the student and lecturer is just not cricket in any form of justification. As a result, a lovey-dovey relationship between the two, whether consensual or not, shears the self-respect and faith within the academic realm.
The purpose of this article is premised on the fortification of socio-academic responsibility and zero tolerance for the evils of sexual harassment behaviours, perpetrated by some members of staff in higher tertiary institutions.
The lecturer’s role is loco parentis as he/she is positioned in a knot of dependence and confidence to the students they educate.
It is blue to discover that some of these perverted staff members, who are carnally involved with students are either married, divorced, engaged or misogamist.
Contrariwise, such affairs adversely promote inequalities of power in the relationship, encourages favouritism, nepotism and or the deflation of confidence in the educational practices.
Generally, if a person has control over another, he/she, time and again can exploit his/her position, thus creating an imbalance of equal energies. Some lecturers use their powers to coerce female students into sex and threaten to fail them if they do not comply.
Therefore, there is always an innate power disproportion in the relationship between the educator and the learner. For example, the lecturer can use the quixotic relationship as a way to reward or punish the student.
The punishment is mostly effective and ‘fruitful’ on practical subjects and or research projects assessments, which are based on the lecturer’s judgement and as a result, will be biased towards the wished-for victim.
For example, in hospitality training, the candidate may be “intentionally” failed or deemed “Not Yet Competent (NYC)” during food preparation task (s) by the assessor/lecturer, citing poor texture, taste, garnish or plating of the product.
For that reason, this judgment may be hard for the complainant (student) to make an appeal for a remake since it is the lecturer’s discretion and power to award the marks in most cases.
Despite the fact that most assessment results are finalised after external moderation, there are greater chances that the moderator endorses the initial mark. In consequence, such a deceptive practice is unethical and is against the fundamental principles of assessment and expertise.
According to Bull, “if you allow sexual and romantic relationships, then you are allowing staff to make sexual and romantic approaches to students and that can be seen as harassment”.
On the other hand, some female students can have more power over the lecturer, thus resulting in the lecturer indulging in such romantic acts, thus weakening professionalism.
Once the relationship is known, the student may suffer the moral disapproval of the other students and staff members. Equally, the lecturer may also face moral disapproval from colleagues and other students he/she lectures.
Educators are obliged to act in a way that safeguards student welfare and as well as to maintain standards of academic integrity and avoid conflicts of interest. Nonetheless, students who feel their academic growth is hinged upon submissive to a sexual relationship with a lecturer or member of staff ,have the right to report sexual harassment.
I must admit that student-lecturer romantic relationships have been in existence for ages and still exist and are still common than you’d think. Likewise, this is to enable students to have a greater understanding and knowledge of what is an acceptable practice or not in their learning settings.
Thus, robust policies on this matter should be activated and toughly enforced in tertiary institutions if absent. To sum up, a strong emphasis must be put forward, to educate both educators and students on the inappropriateness of such acts in education, so that there is a reputable and equitable teaching and learning environment.
Mr Simbarashe Murima (PhDc) University of Johannesburg (UJ) Writing in his own capacity as an Education, Tourism and Hospitality expert in Namibia and Zimbabwe. Feedback: [email protected]/ +264814571709/ +263781480742
