The protest action by some parents and students of Berbice High School on Friday is perhaps symptomatic of the times in which we live. A teacher of the school had been sent on leave for flogging the members of almost an entire class on their buttocks with a “bamboo rod” for not submitting their assignments on time. The Region 6 Regional Education Officer had taken the action against the teacher with the approval of the Teaching Service Commission pending an investigation of the matter. The regulations do permit corporal punishment in our schools, but it must be administered by a head teacher or an assistant teacher authorized by the latter, who would carry it out in the presence of the head.
One presumes that there was a breach of the regulations and permission had not been granted to the teacher by the head to proceed as she did, although nothing has come from the educational authorities to indicate that this was indeed so. What we reported yesterday was that the Ministry of Education had said repeatedly that corporal punishment should not be employed in relation to school work, and as far as this was concerned, the teacher was clearly not in conformity with the ministry’s injunction. We had also reported that the Chief Education Officer had written a letter advising that the teacher should be allowed to return to duty, but that the ministry had not been in favour of this.
This latest development follows reports in another section of the press that the teachers of Berbice High, supported by the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and President Colwyn King, had been on a work-to-rule in a bid to have the suspended member of staff reinstated. If so, Mr King and the union are both behaving irresponsibly and doing those they represent absolutely no favours. To back industrial action in relation to a member who has so obviously broken the rules is to undermine the credibility of the union and impair its capacity to effectively represent genuine cases where officialdom is guilty of unfairness and the like. If the GTU cannot distinguish between issues falling into different categories, the authorities and others will simply cease to take it seriously as an organization. In addition, to take the stance it did is to diminish the standing of the teaching profession, which should be committed to imparting to students the precepts of responsible behaviour and adherence to rules.
As far as the teachers are concerned, it is probably not uncommon for corporal punishment to be administered in some schools in defiance of the regulations and the instructions issued by the ministry. The ire of the suspended teacher’s fellow members of staff at Berbice High School, therefore, may have been inspired by the sentiment, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ That, however, is no excuse for their behaviour now, which transmits to the students the dangerous message of ‘might is right.’ If teachers cannot behave in an exemplary fashion in a situation where their colleague is in the wrong, we should hardly be surprised if young people are learning all the wrong lessons in school, which will eventually be translated into ignoring the rules in the outside world.
As for the parents, it is no secret that in this country a large number of parents are in favour of physical sanctions in the classroom, and use it as a method of control at home as well. One suspects too that they may not be overly fussy about the niceties of the regulations or any admonitions issuing from the ministry in relation to corporal punishment, and just take it for granted that a teacher has a right to beat a pupil if school work is not done to satisfaction.
One presumes that the Berbice High PTA simply regards it as a matter of getting the suspended staff member back into the classroom as quickly as possible, because the children are the ones who are suffering as a consequence of her absence. Whether the teacher in question is responsible for a CXC class has not been made public, but if so, that would have made parents doubly impatient.
What is a matter of concern, however, is that the PTA should have opted for protest action in circumstances where they had other alternatives. Did they try to contact the Regional Education Officer, and if they could not speak to her did they speak to any of the senior officials of the ministry, for example? If they were still not satisfied did they try to contact the Minister? Did they, for example, attempt to write a letter to the head of the Teaching Service Commission, or speak to him, outlining their position and asking for a temporary reinstatement while the matter is investigated? They could not ask for a full reinstatement until there has been an investigation; it is important for the procedures to be followed so justice is seen to be done as well as done in reality. To ignore procedures would be to set a precedent which could make it difficult to discipline teachers under any circumstances, particularly when corporal punishment issues are involved.
Furthermore, the organization clearly did not give much thought to the wisdom or otherwise of sending students to protest outside the school. Once again, these are not the kinds of lessons which the parents should be seeking to convey. There may be rare occasions when there is some justification for students to demonstrate, but whatever those might be, this is certainly not one of them. As said above, how can children learn respect for rules and the laws of the land if their elders encourage them to make a scene in order to ensure that those rules are circumvented?
Life would be a lot simpler, of course, if Guyana would bring itself into compliance with the international instruments it has signed relating to the rights of the child, etc. The abolition of corporal punishment in schools, however, would be a very unpopular move in this country and the administration has shown no appetite for facing down the public on this one. As it is, therefore, even the draft Education Bill has incorporated regulations relating to corporal punishment, rather than outlawing it. The very least that can be managed in the circumstances, it would seem, is to systematically apply the regulations which do exist, along with any instructions from the ministry on the subject. Not to do so is to leave the door open for gross abuse.
Perhaps the Mashramani break will give all the parties involved time for sober reflection, so some dignified backtracking becomes possible, and an issue which should never have reached to this point in the first place can achieve some sort of resolution.
