Dear Editor,
The media has reported from the recent UG Turkeyen and Tain Talks ‘Education and Freedom: Education Reform and Socio-Economic Development in Guyana’. The media reports do not speak of any concern that teachers can still beat children in Guyana’s schools.
There is something wrong about 2018 Guyana where the issue of beating children in Guyana’s schools is not highlighted at a forum on education reform to draw the media’s attention.
The Stabroek News reports on the passionate speech by the General Secretary of the GTU. It is unfortunate that the leadership of the GTU seems committed to maintaining the status quo where children are not valued as equal human beings. The last time the GTU leadership spoke on corporal punishment (‘Reduction of class sizes could dispel need for corporal punishment -RCC’ Kaieteur News, Aug 2, 2017) , it was to support the beating of children especially “aggressive children”.
In January 2016, President Granger had said that there was no place for the corporal punishment of children in Guyana’s schools. His views have not been transformed into any reality where schools can be violence free.
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
