Leave Corporal Punishment Alone!

 

Corporal punishment: A global view written by Mr Farley an educator and secondary school principal in the  Nation’s Sunday Sun lay out a fairly well case on behalf of teachers locally by looking at the consequences globally that follows when corporal punishment is stripped away from teacher’s authority.

As rightly indicated in his article corporal punishment is the sole responsibility of the principal/head teacher. [Education Act, Cap. 41].They in turn can delegate that responsibility to seniors teachers. Being that the case most heads prefer not to do the job mandated to them under the law for fear of a cutlass chop by an over zealous parent! Nevertheless there is an old saying that if it ain’t broken why fix it. So what the hell is Minister of Education Mr Jones advocating by stating that “society should eliminate that form of discipline altogether.” Did Mr Jones had a bad case of corporal punishment during his childhood? What right does the Minister have in stripping away parental and teacher rights in administer disciple when see fit? Do we have a high incidence of child abuse in our schools due to corporal punishment? Bring the evidence. Every organisation  have policies to governed  its “downline”, schools ought to be no different.

Guidelines have been lay down as to who should administer corporal punishment in schools. Any teacher can’t willy nilly hit a child. So why tamper with that Mr Jones? I like how the Canadians address this folly according to Mr Farley column -

Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child…. if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances. Source : Canadian Criminal Cde 1. Section 43.

“If the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances” is plain as day for any one with sufficient intellect to comprehend such a statement. But the opponents to corporal discipline always see fit to categories it as child abuse. Corporal punishment is not child abuse. It can be used however as a form of child abuse just like any other form of discipline. If I take a belt and lash it across a child mouth that in my book would qualify as child abuse. That would exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances. If the same belt was administer over the buttocks that would not be consider child abuse or exceeding what is reasonable under the circumstances since some sort of force would still have to be entail. Otherwise one is defeating the purpose. What is the sense flogging in the first place? However if the said belt was continuously dealt in such a way that the skin was peeling off the flesh that would be child abuse because the adult was exceeding what is reasonable under the circumstances!

It all comes down to guidelines. No governments have the right to dictate whether a teacher or a parent should flog a child. When that fear is gone all hell will break loose as is documented in Farley’s article. Doesn’t Mr Jones not know that the UN is run by humanists who are hell bend in destroying the family unit for their own distorted view of a what a society ought to be? There are more pressing concerns for our school children right now to be addressed. Corporal punishment is a trivial issue.

• Heads’ Say
• Whip Wanted
• Outside The Pulpit: What, Abolish Flogging!

About these ads