Corporal punishment contributes to suicide, mental illnesses – Psychologist

…more talking, listening required before administering lashes

By Lakhram Bhagirat

Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the state of the education sector, Ed Caesar said that the consultations revealed that parents and teachers were calling for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools. However, Psychologists and social workers say this will be detrimental to children’s mental health and well-being.

Corporal punishment is still being used in the school system and in some cases, it is so severe that children are left bruised and in pain. Former Education Minister Priya Manickchand had instituted restrictions on the administering of corporal punishment in schools. One of the restrictions states that a child should not be flogged for being unable to learn or for not doing school work, while another mandates that no child should be flogged in the presence of other children. Quite often, those restrictions are breached and some teachers say it is for the good of the child. However, both social workers and Psychologists who claim that hitting a child adds insult to injury while offering no solution vehemently dispute the notion of administering ‘ashes.
Psychologist Jermain Pollard told <<<Guyana Times>>> that he believes that corporal punishment should be completely removed in the interest of the mental well-being of the child. He added that children’s bodies were constantly changing and quite often, they were unable to cope with those changes and would lash out because of not being able to cope. He explained that when that child would go to school and misbehave, there should be systems in place to counsel the child and offer long-term solutions to the issues.
“Psychologically, corporal punishment harms children because you don’t know how they are behaving a certain way, they are acting and to beat them is like adding insult to the injury. So for some kids, it will scar them permanently and that is why some of them will lash out or rebel,” Pollard informed.
He noted that corporal punishment was “just a way of finding a solution to a problem it cannot fix; it’s like curing the symptoms without finding out the cause. There are no systems in place to help to listen. There is no one to listen and that is why some of our youths want to commit suicide because there’s no one to give an ear; that is the sad reality of it.”
Despite the psychological impacts of corporal punishment, teachers and some parents are adamant that it is the only means of maintaining discipline in schools. Parent Navita Beykarran said she had no issue with teachers hitting her child if it would assist in ensuring he secured a proper education.
Another parent, Samuel Tyrell, said he would give teachers permission to administer lashes to his son, providing there was probable cause. When asked what probable cause would require lashes, he informed: “If he is disrespectful or don’t do he work, then he has to be disciplined and if they don’t do it, then I will.”
During her tenure as Education Minister, Manickchand conducted several consultation sessions with stakeholders across the country on the issue of corporal punishment and the resounding call was for it to be reinstituted. However, former President Bharrat Jagdeo in 2007 publicly condemned the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary method.
Guyana is a signatory to several conventions that prohibit hitting a child, which is considered child abuse.
Adding to the discussion, social worker Alicia Solomon told this publication that corporal punishment pushed the fear factor and made children withdrawn. In addition, she called for alternative disciplining methods to take the place of corporal punishment.
“We have to put things in place, so that we can help those children because most of the times the children that we see have something going on at home and they are coming into the school system and are going to act it out and say that somebody is going to recognise it,” the former school counsellor explained.
“We need to sit down and investigate where does that come from and how can I help this child? The school system fails some of these children because they misbehave or don’t know how to conduct themselves; we put them at the back of the class and that doesn’t help them or we send them home. We need to talk more and in the Guyana context, we don’t talk,” Solomon added.
She said rather than making violence seem the norm, emphasis should be placed on moral education and the effects of violence.
Former Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine had said he was disturbed that corporal punishment was still being administered in schools. He also said that the Ministry was working on the abolishment of policy that dictated corporal punishment.
It is unclear since Roopnaraine is no longer at the helm of the Education Ministry whether the abolishment of corporal punishment will be a priority. Efforts to determine the status of the policy change proved futile.