Dear Editor,
I refer to the notice published in your newspaper recently by the Ministry of Education informing members of the public of the appointment of the task force with the mandate to have consultations with the public on the matter of the abolition or retention of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure in schools under the control and management of the government.
I consider it necessary for me to refer to correspondence which I addressed to the Chairperson of the above-mentioned task force drawing attention to the fact that Guyana had already ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibited the infliction of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure in schools under the control and management of the state, and had made no reservation to the convention which would have allowed Guyana to retain corporal punishment in educational institutions under the control and management of the state in specified circumstances identified in the reservation. Other Caricom states similarly have ratified the convention with the Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas entering a reservation with regard to conferring citizenship on a child having regard to the Constitution of The Bahamas.
I, therefore, have reservations about the purpose of the proposed consultations and the fate of any recommendations arising from them calling for the retention of corporal punishment.
In my letter to the Chairperson of the Task Force I referred to the extreme and undesirable alternative of denouncing or withdrawing from the convention with its many beneficial elements, at this late stage, in order to retain the infliction of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure, even in limited circumstances, in schools under the control and management of the government.
Yours faithfully,
Brynmor T I Pollard, SC
