Corporal punishment must go—Minister

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 1

Corporal punishment must go—Minister

PA Wellington The Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, says he remains determined to abolish corporal punishment in schools, in spite of opposition from some teachers and parents. He said yesterday he was a “hardliner” on the issue and he hoped legislation to ban such punishment would be passed by the end of the year. “Not everyone is so aggressive about being non-aggressive in the classroom,” Mr Marshall said.

While he had initially hoped legislation would not be necessary, he had reluctantly come to the view that corporal punishment would have to be legally banned.

A Cabinet sub-commit-tee had discussed on Tuesday how that could be achieved, and had proposed amending the Education Act, combined with

a change to the Crimes Act to remove the legal defence for corporal punishment.

The caucus briefly discussed the matter yesterday, and its education committee will look at the matter more fully during the next week, and report back to the caucus on Thursday.

Mr Marshall said he could not claim that all caucus members were 100 per cent behind the proposal to legislate against corporal punishment, though he believed most would oppose strapping and caning children in school.

He said he did not believe he was imposing his views on reluctant parents. A Gisborne primary school principal said earlier this week that most parents at his school favoured the strap as a last-resort punishment, and they were unlikely to sit back and take the

change. A Heylen poll last year showed 80 per cent of people supported strapping and caning, and though the primary and secondary teachers’ unions oppose corporal punishment, many teachers believe it should continue.

Mr Marshall said many parents did not really understand what happened in modem schools, and the changes in methods of discipline. Parents should question their own attitudes to cor-, poral punishment, and he hoped to help them understand schools better through an educational television series, possibly later this year.

Mr Marshall said he believed that with measures in this year’s Budget he would have provided teachers with enough support systems to cope without corporal punishment.