Immaturity causes student brawls

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Student brawls are often associated with junior high school and high school students, still too young and immature to control their emotions and deal with problems in a mature, nonviolent manner. However, this social phenomenon has also become a problem on the city's college campuses.

"I witness a student brawl (on my campus) almost every month," said Jusuf, a student at the Christian University of Indonesia (UKI).

Jusuf, who was involved in a brawl in April, said in most cases the violence was sparked by a trivial matter like a quarrel over a girl or a parking space.

Just like high school students, Jusuf said, college students are often ready to fight over a small argument on a bus.

Ahmad Gimmy Prathama Siswadi, a psychologist at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, blamed a dearth of lecturers for many of the conflicts on campuses.

"As a result of the wide ratio (between lecturers and students), many problems experienced by students on campus remain unresolved. This situation is very stressful for students trying to pursue their studies," Ahmad said. "Ideally, the ratio (between lecturers and students) is 1:15. But in reality many lecturers must oversee more than 60 or even a hundred students."

Besides, he added, many students have the emotional burden of being forced to take a major they dislike because of the competition to get into the more popular majors.

Ahmad was speaking last week at a seminar on the role of lecturers in coping with conflicts on campus. The seminar was held at Trisakti University, which had to shut down for a week last month because of a brawl. Three students were injured and six cars were damaged during that incident, which was sparked by an argument over a parking space.

Meanwhile, Adrianus Meliala, a criminologist at the University of Indonesia, remarked that student brawls could be minimized if lecturers were more skillful at spotting and preventing potential conflicts before they occurred.

"Lecturers must master ways to resolve conflicts, including through negotiation, mediation and arbitration in accordance with the respective situation and the case," Adrianus said.

Otherwise, he said, a small conflict could eventually turn into a brawl.

Adrianus added that there were so many fights on campus because university officials failed to impose stern sanctions on students involved in violence.

"The universities must also impose stern sanctions on those groups to which the fighting students belong. If the brawls affect the groups, then the groups will in turn stop rewarding their members for being involved in the brawls," Adrianus said.

Meanwhile, Dadan Umar Daihani, a lecturer at Trisakti University, said the university often failed to apply proper punishments because of a common misperception about the students.

"We lecturers often treat (the students) like children, not as adults who should be held responsible for their actions," Dadan said.

He said the university should gather together students and lecturers to seek solutions to conflicts on the campus.

Endon, a student at Trisakti, agreed, saying all parties on campus must work together to prevent brawls.

"Brawls must be stopped because they disrupt the activities at the university and keep students from their studies," said Endon.