Debate on corporal punishment revives

Press, 20 September 1980, Page 14

Debate on corporal punishment revives

At its annual conference last month, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association narrowly defeated a motion to abolish corporal punishment in secondary schools by 1982. In this, the first of two articles, JOHN LEVERSEDGE, a Christchurch teacher, looks at the background to the debate on corporal punishment in New Zealand schools.

Debate on the maxim “spare the rod and spoil the child” is again gaining momentum. Since the Commission of Education sat eighteen years ago, the pros and cons of corporal punishment have been regularly aired. During the Currie Commission investigations of 1962, numerous .submissions were made calling for the abolition of corporal punishment. The Department of Education claimed that the use of corporal punishment in schools had decreased over the years, but when pressed, could not produce any evidence to back-up this claim. Teachers as a body remained divided on the issue.

maintaining acceptable standards of conduct.” Such alternative means have yet to be formulated. The recent International Year of the Child again focused attention on pupils’ rights and again debate is looming. At last year’s annual conference, the Education Boards’ Association declared . its desire to abolish corporal punishment in primary and secondary schools and to replace it with a “more positive system.” , . The lobbying is, however, not all one-sided. At the annual conference of the Federation of the P.T.A.s last year, a remit calling for “equality” in corporal punishment was discussed at length. But the recommendation that girls be given the same punishments as boys was not supported. At the . moment, Education Board by-laws expressly forbid the use of corporal punishment on girls over- ten years of age. Corporal punishment is restricted to serious offences, where it is likely to act as a deterrent to further misconduct. Serious offences today do not include ‘failure' to achieve a desired standard of. work or degree of correctness, or inability to learn, or neglect to prepare home lessons.”

The Commission, after weighing all the evidence before it, in effect recommended nothing. All it suggested was that the Education Boards’ Association confer with both the Education Department • and the primary teachers union, the N.Z.E.1., to formulate a gen'eral code on corporal punishment for adoption throughout New Zealand schools. .Nothing has resulted; the individual Education Board by-laws still determine policy; In the late sixties, Parliament was petitioned on the subject. An amendment to the Education Act, 1964, was sought to make corporal punishment illegal at both ends of the school system, : so protecting infants and senior high school pupils. The Government of the day thought that any attempt to legislate on this petition would.be “inadvisable.” -■ Debate on the-whole' subject simmered down until the Education Development Conference in 1974., The abolitionists then carried the day with the following conf e r e n c e recommendation: “That regulations be passed prohibiting the use of corporal punishment in schools, ; and that school communities devise alternative means of

Considering the way our education system is influenced by overseas trends, it is surprising that such a traditional practice as corporal punishment has survived as long as it has. Internationally, New Zealand is one ’of a small group of countries where strapping and caning are still permitted. The list includes Australia, Barbados, Canada, South Africa, Swaziland, Trinidad-Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The nations permitting corporal punishment generally have one .thing; in common — they were once part of the British Empire. Internationally, ‘ there has

been a steady increase in those countries legislating against corporal punishment. This, list includes all European countries, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Iceland, Jordan, Mauritius, Philippines, Qatar, the U.S.S.R. and its satellite countries., Many nations claim that they, have never permitted the use of corporal punishment so that the abolition of it is not possible. There is clearly some self-deception involved in the cases of some of these countries.

On Monday: The use of corporal punishment today.