Millions face school violence across Asia
Updated
School can be a tough place for children at the best of times, but a new report says 350 million students around the world face violence in their schools each year, with lasting impacts on their well being. The international children's organisation Plan says physical and sexual abuse of school children are prevalent in many Asian schools, and it is launching a 3-year campaign worldwide to change laws and update teaching methods.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Randeep Kaur, education advisor, Plan in India
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STUDENT: Well I was just writing on the board and he asked me to ask a question to a boy but I forgot to ask him and he smacked me on my butt.
COCHRANE: For this 14-year-old Nepalese student, an ocassional smack in front of her classmates is just part of going to school. And she's not the only one. A new report from the organisation Plan says corporal punishments in schools is legal in 90 countries around the world. Randeep Kaur is the education advisor for Plan in India and she says classroom violence there is widespread.
KAUR: We identified 33 types of violence, which was stuff like hitting on the head or pencilling, which is putting a pencil between two fingers and squeezing the fingers... and it is so endemic that almost every classroom reports hitting five times within every class, so if multiply into - if there are six classes in a daytime, so that's 30 beatings in a day and if you multiply by the number of days in a month, so you can imagine the amount of violence that children are subject to in schools.
COCHRANE: In neighbouring Nepal, 16-year-old, Lisa, says that classroom punishments seem like torture to students.
LISA: They don't do their homework on time, in the due dates and all, and they beat the students mercilessly and then sometimes its too much like the teacher is torturing them too much.
COCHRANE: There are no hard statistics on corporal punishment across Asia, but national surveys suggest it's all too common, and affects boys more than girls. The report from Plan, titled 'Learn Without Fear', says that corporal punishment is often defended as a necessary way of diciplining students, but the report argues that hitting children is more likely to encourage violence than to improve behaviour.
Its also likely to push students out the door, according to the report and to Lisa in Kathamandu.
LISA: They give threats and all to the students and the students dont feel like going to school and they get mentally disturbed.
COCHRANE: A study found that 14 percent of students leaving school early in Nepal did so because they were scared of their teacher. But the impact of years of caning, slapping and humiliation can extend far beyond school days.
KAUR: There's a fear that settles into the mind and once there is a fear there's absolutely an inability to work, study or engage with others and it actually leads to an intergenerational cycle of violence, you know, that I was hit so its ok for me to hit my kids and then the children will go about hitting their children.
COCHRANE: Plan's report links violence in schools with problems later in life including depression, heavy drinking and even suicide. Their research also found a disturbing level of bullying and sexual abuse in schools, with Thailand reporting an average of one sexual asault each week. In an effort to tackle school violence and abuse, Plan is launching a campaign covering 5,000 schools in 40 countries, which aims to change laws and attitudes. Randeep Kaur from Plan says some teachers acknowledge it's wrong to beat their students but their question to researchers is.
KAUR: How do you handle 60 children without using a stick or slapping them?
COCHRANE: Changing these deeply entrenched methods of teaching may take some time, but Plan hopes it can persuade governments to ban all forms of violence against children in schools and will work with teachers to develop peaceful ways to discpline students.
