Can Merit Demerit System solve disciplinary problems in schools?

Disciplinary problems in schools have been on the increase, particularly in secondary schools. I am
posting this problem as I believe many schools are facing these problems. Any system introduced to
curb disciplinary problems must be fair to students. Several years ago, Education Department had
encouraged schools to introduce Merit Demerit System to curb increasing disciplinary problems in
schools. However, implementing it will take up a lot of discipline teachers time. The schools must
have a proper way of recording to keep track of students behaviour. It needs the cooperation of all
the teachers for it to be successful. It is the amount of paper work that discourages most schools from
its implementation.
I had developed a computer programme that may help in the implementation. With the implemetation
of a computer Merit Demerit system, the burden of doing paper work will be reduced. Keeping track of
records of all students in school will be taken care of by the system. All the teachers need to do is to
enter into the system all the merits and demerits of every student as soon as possible so that the
system can provide the up-to-date disciplinary information of the school.
The system that I developed will save teachers time in typing in students basic information. It can
import student basic particulars from SMM. In the 1980s, the Ministry of Education had come up with
different categories of indiscipline. Types of disciplinary problems were listed out with codes for easier
analysis. In 1997, School Division introduced a computer program to record different types of
discipline occurred in schools to provide feedback to the Education Department. The computer system,
SSDM, made use of the existing system of disciplinary codes that was introduced earlier. Basically,
teacher-in-charge has to key in all the disciplinary problems from their disciplinary record book, where
teachers record wqhenever disciplinary problems were brought to their attention. However, the
programme only record disciplinary problems.
To introduce Merit Demerit System, the school must record both, good and bad deed of students.
There is no problem in the demerit as there already existed since the 1980s. All the school needs to
do is to award negative points to each and every disciplinary problems in the list.
On the positive side, school needs to list out all the activities that deserve to be given merit points.
Merit points can be given to various posts held by students. Important posts with heavier
responsiblities will be given higer merit points. Merit points should also be given for students who
come forward to help teachers or students who need help.
With both merit list and demerit list, the school is now ready to implement the Merit Demerit System.
In order to be effective, the disciplinary board must put up in the class up-to-date list of students
showing the status of points. The school may start will 60 or 100 for every student. The demerit points
will reduce the points while the merit points will increase. Once the net points fall below to certain
level, punishment will be metted out on the students. The list may be updated fortnightly whenever
there are changes in the status.
The following shows some screen shots of Sistem Merit Demerit:

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8 Responses to Can Merit Demerit System solve disciplinary problems in schools?
1. Bryan says:
April 28, 2009 at 5:22 am
Can you give me additional information about this system and where I can get it,
Thanks
Reply
2. vitdoo says:
June 20, 2009 at 4:04 am
a place totals up the data the knowledge is a lot of techinque main point data techinque the
knowledge is all-round goods is modern
Reply
3. aparna says:
October 21, 2009 at 10:00 am
please i need more information about this
Reply
o Koh Teng Gee says:
October 21, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Implementing Merit Demerit in schools will definitely help in reducing indisiplinary
problems. However, it could be time consuming if records of indisipline are not
computerised. In Sistem Merit Demerit, all students are given points, such as 100, at the
beginning of the year. Each offence is given negative point while positive points are for
merit. When students commit offence, the negative points will offset the total while
performing good deeds will add. At the end of each month, a class list can be printed out
to show where they stand. School authorities have to determine what actions are to be
taken when students total points drop to certain levels.
Reply
4. perrywiseman says:
November 23, 2009 at 5:15 am
My school staff created a merit system that focuses solely on positive academics, behavior,
attendance, and involvement in extra-curricular activities. I have this philosophy that: If students
earn some sort of merits, then they should never have these merits taken awaye.g., demerits.
Instead, maybe they are placed on probation and prohibited from whatever privileges have been
bestowed.
Check it out:
http://wisefoundations.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/educational-leadership-connecting-kids-to-
school/
Cheers!
Perry
Reply
5. Mayor says:
February 28, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Very good software, can you tell me where i can download this software ?
Reply
6. malaysianschools says:
April 19, 2010 at 3:39 am
Here is a blog post about how implementation of the merit/demerit system in Convent Bukit Nanas
(Kuala Lumpur) is essentially promoting a fascist mentality:
http://malaysianschools.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/fascism-in-convent-bukit-nanas-kuala-
lumpur/
We would strongly discourage anyone from implementing such as system, both because it
encourages fascism, and because it is of little use as a disciplinary tool. There are other ways to
get disciplined schools.
Reply
o Koh Teng Gee says:
April 19, 2010 at 7:16 am
Thanks for the comment. Merit/Demerit software is only a tool to collect data for various
offences. Instead of manual recording of offences of the students, the software allowed
users to record them in a database. The software is not concerned with the type of
punishment meted out by the school authorities. During my school days in 1950s, offences
were not recorded but the headmaster canned students for offences on the spot. There
was nothing to show to the education authorities who visited schools. However, over
times, offences were recorded in books as records to show to parents. There was no
uniformity in recording and punishment meted out to offenders. In 1984, MOE had come
up with the list of offences, which were categoried in to 8 main offences. CBNKL had added
in their own list of offences, not conformed to the MOE list.
Education department collected statistics on various offences from schools periodically.
With up-to-date database of offences, the schools are able to generate statistics on the
spot for the department. Merit/Demerit software is to replace manual recording. It doesnt
recommend the type of punishment and how punishment is carried out.
Koh TG