Education

Alternative ways to be looked into disciplining students

May 23, 2022 6:00 am

Education Minister, Premila Kumar. [File Photo]

The Education Minister, Premila Kumar says she is saddened by the reports of suicide, attempted suicide, sexual abuse, and students being caught with drugs.

Kumar says every day she receives messages or is briefed on such incidents in schools making her realize that parents are raising their children in a very difficult environment.

She says while there is a child protection act that needs to be followed that does not mean a child cannot be disciplined.

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“You can discipline a child, go back to the yesteryears where you used to make a child sit in the corner or you had to make a child write 100 times I will not do it again, remember those tactics, so these are old teacher survival skills and in a difficult situation like these we need to bring back those teacher survival skills and use them rather than losing our temper and trying smacking a child.”

Kumar says they need to find ways to ensure students do not fall in with the bad crowd.

“We cannot sit back and say ok we can’t discipline the child but we have to look at other ways of doing that and perhaps one of these days we will be organizing, I am not saying right now but a couple of months later we will organize a forum on child behaviour and how do we deal with this. “

The Education Minister adds they are also looking at introducing a talanoa platform for parents and students so that they are also able to raise their issues as well.