“Teachers of both private and public institutions are resorting to punishments to discipline their students,” said Mansoob Siddiqui, who is the provincial director of private educational institutions. The practice is also common in homes as well as workplaces, added Siddiqui.
However, the lack of relevant laws on the books might partly explain the widespread use of the practice. Lack of awareness of lodging formal complaints with the relevant government department can also be held partly responsible.
According to the draft copy of a private member’s bill, titled “Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2010” that is available on the National Assembly’s website, the term refers to “any punishment in which physical force is used and [is] intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort”.
The bill, proposed by MNA Attiya Inayatullah, goes onto present some examples of corporal punishment, some of which include “hitting a child with the hand or with an implement (whip, stick, belt, shoe, etc), [or] kicking, shaking or throwing a child, [and] pulling hair”. Among the penalties cited in the bill for those found engaged in the practice is “dismissal from service” as well as demotion.
Sindh Education Foundation’s (SEF) Ali Usman highlighted the psychological effects of the practice, and said that children’s creativity suffers when they “start to fear their environment.” He added that the practice did not serve any purpose at all. SEF has set up a complaint mechanism for students in all the schools that are under its jurisdiction. The proposed piece of legislation also made it mandatory for private institutions to set up a similar complaint centre for addressing claims of corporal punishment.
SPARC’s national manager, Mohammad Imtiaz Ahmed, lamented that Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which deals with administering “mild punishment to children” was vague. “No one can measure mildness of a punishment, and perpetrators might take an advantage from this.”
Mohammad Ali Shah, a representative for the Sindh Ombudsman, said that the children complaint office has received only 200 cases since 2009. The office is part of the ombudsman’s department. “Children seem to be reluctant to complain about their teachers. A mechanism needs to be set up in schools so that these problems could be addressed.”
SPARC’s Iqbal Detho also criticised PPC’s Section 89 for “providing immunity to any action that is done in the welfare of children”. He said that lawmakers should introduce a bill on corporal punishment in the legislature, and then pass it as well.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2012.
COMMENTS (6)
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Ah! those fine old days. Murgha, chalks squeezed between fingers, duster cloth wrapped on face, cane hitting, slaps, you name it.
This is just terrible practice in the old days and now should be stopped as it has a really bad impact on students.
Unfortunately the new generation that doesn't want to study and the old generation that doesn't want to give up on barbaric/ dark age ways of punishment are both mixed in an institution meant for moving us from the crisis we are in these days.
The picture bbrings back some uncomfortable memories from the class room
OMG……it reminds me of my school days and inhuman experience due to which I started to bunk my class on daily basis but one fine morning my cousin caught me hiding behind the door and guess what he took me straight to the same teacher who made me “murgha” every morning “not due to any animosity….LOL” and that was end of it…….never bunk my class even though I cursed myself sitting in this class…..LOL