Time to end cruelty to children
It’s been almost five years since the Justices Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif banned corporal punishment from schools and madrasas in Bangladesh. There are children in schools and madrasas today who still suffer horrific beatings from ‘teachers’ lacking human qualities of compassion, mercy, and common-sense. They pick-up their monthly salary with indifference to the suffering and long-term damage they have caused to the children.
When are these teachers going to learn that nothing good comes from corporal punishment; never has, never will, and there are hundreds of reports worldwide supporting this fact? Does it have to be beaten-in to them, since they believe in the effectiveness of corporal punishment so much? The real damage of corporal punishment is not necessarily in the initial pain of the unlawful beating and inhuman cruelty involved, but in its long-term mental after-effects that over time can trigger a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr Hyde character and manifest in muggings, beatings, destruction of private and public property, wife-beatings, murders and a loveless, despising, and hateful attitude to all, including his own family.
Schools should not be horrific hell-holes of fear. Each child has a unique talent and the role of true education is to explore and promote that innate power within him or her.
Sir Frank Peters
On e-mail
