Corporal punishment to be totally banned soon – Dr Roopnaraine …says alternative disciplinary measur

guyana chronicle, October 20, 2015

EDUCATION Minister Dr Rupert Roopnaraine has said he is disturbed by the fact that teachers are still administering corporal punishment in schools, and the Ministry of Education (MoE) is seeking ways to eliminate it from the school system.He said that as a real alternative to corporal punishment, a central counselling body will be established soon, and a trained councillor will be attached to each school. “Children need love, children need care, children need to be happy,” the minister said during an interview with the Guyana Chronicle.

In recent months, several reports have surfaced of students — particularly in the hinterland — being brutalised by their teachers, some of whom have been disciplined by the Teaching Service Commission.

The Ministry of Education had, some year ago, adopted rules and regulations for administering corporal punishment. One rule says that a child should not be flogged for being unable to learn, or for not doing school work; and another rule mandates that no child should be flogged in the presence of other children. Those rules were often breached.

In 2013, the National Assembly had adopted the Report of the Special Select Committee of the National Assembly on the United Nations Human Rights Council with regard to the abolition of corporal punishment in schools. The committee had begun work in 2012 following the move to adopt a motion addressing the issue, which was tabled by then Prime Minister Samuel Hinds in August 2012. Hinds had reported to the National Assembly that Guyana appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council during the first cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in May 2010, and then in September 2010. The second cycle is to take place in 2016.

The PPP government was of the view that parliamentary consideration of this matter would have enhanced the national consultations procedurally. The subject was placed before a special select committee which had organised the national consultations in a complementary, credible way. Several organisations had made presentations before the committee.

National Choir Dr Roopnaraine also disclosed that the Education Ministry is currently setting up a National Choir, which will make its debut performance during Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations. He said teachers from several schools have been asked to select students and submit their names to the Ministry of Education for inclusion in the diplomatic youth outfit that would carry national and folk songs countrywide. He has also recognised that few children are acquainted with the national songs, and that a majority of children are versed only on the first and last stanzas of the National Anthem, “Dear land of Guyana”.

“This is a failure,” he said; and while some of the great music teachers of the past have passed on, the Education Ministry, he revealed, will employ the services of some of the pioneers of the past, as well as more recent experts in the field, to recapture what has been lost.

A steelpan fabrication workshop will be held before year’s end to teach Guyanese to craft and produce steel pans here, instead of importing them from Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr Roopnaraine further disclosed that Government is working assiduously to upgrade the education system, making it complete with efficient, effective curriculum delivery, and equipping it with a variety of musical instruments and sports facilities, along with the human resources to carry out its new mandate.

He said he would like to see sports departments installed in every school, as fitness is vital for development. He listed some of the sport activities being introduced in schools as football, volleyball, basketball, cricket, circle tennis, table tennis.

The MoE has also alerted NCERD in a move to undertake a comprehensive curriculum review, to understand where adjustment is needed to eliminate illiteracy countrywide. The Education Minister is dissatisfied with the way the education system has, over the years, allowed the rate of illiteracy to increase, with many students entering secondary schools being unable to read.

“I don’t know when was the last time (a curriculum review) was done, but I know we are urgently in need of it now,” he said. At the end of the review, the MoE will create a curriculum which resonates with the interests and needs of each child within the education system.

With the conversion of the ‘One Laptop Per Family’(OLPF) drive to the ‘One Laptop Per Teacher’ (OPLT) programme, teachers will be similarly equipped to step ahead with the children, who already are exposed to certain programmes and information, leaving teachers behind.20