By Petrina Francis, Education ReporterSOME EDUCATORS and parents are in support of the Ministry of Education's decision to ban corporal punishment from early childhood institutions, arguing that there are alternative ways of disciplining children.
Shelly-Ann Christie, teacher at the Bethlehem Assembly Basic School in Linstead, St. Catherine, agrees that corporal punishment should be banned at the early childhood level.
"Beating children usually has a negative impact on their learning because they will get withdrawn and don't want to respond," Mrs. Christie told The Gleaner. "When you hit the children they do the same thing over and over again, so it is better to talk to them," she added.
Claudette Lennox, principal of the same school, concurred: "It (corporal punishment) should be banned."
Ms. Lennox said that teachers should punish children by putting them to stand rather than beating them because when they are beaten some of them get scared and do not want to go to school.
The Education Code does not speak to the issue of corporal punishment, but debate on the subject has been ongoing.
"We don't encourage (corporal punishment), we have had too many complaints because it is not administered appropriately," said Dorett Campbell, director of communications at the Ministry of Education.
Asked if the ministry will ban corporal punishment at all levels of the education system, Ms. Campbell said, "That's a start (banning it from the early childhood level), we are
making that first step."
Ms. Campbell said the Early Childhood Act has empowered the Early Child-hood Commission to close institutions that are not operating within the guidelines.
Meanwhile, Wentworth Gabbidon, outgoing president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, supports the ministry's stance on banning corporal punishment from early childhood education.
Mr. Gabbidon said that corporal punishment should be banned from all levels of the education system because there are other ways of disciplining a child.
