Spare the rod, school the child

SPARC calls to end corporal punishment in all district schools.

SIALKOT: A children’s rights NGO, SPARC district coordinator Muhammad Arslan Khan has called for an end to corporal punishment for students in all district schools. Khan said that beating students discouraged them and made them more liable to drop out of school at an early age.

“The world has made great progress and the trend of caning students is no longer an acceptable means of imparting education,” he said. Ending corporal punishment is the only way to encourage children to get an education, Khan said.

Arslan Khan added that corporal involved everything from beating children with sticks, kicking, throwing, pinching and pulling their hair. “All of these constitute a violation of children rights,” he said. Khan revealed that the SPARC child rights committee was committed to ending all forms of corporal punishment in schools.

“It is a pity that even private schools often indulge in this inhuman practice which needs to be stamped out of our society as soon as possible,” he said.

“If we want to encourage more children to attend school, beating them when they fail to remember their lessons is not exactly the way to do it,” Khan added. He said the SPARC was committed to improving the scope of education in Pakistan to make it compatible with international standards and enlightened values.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2010.