THE Office of the Children’s Advocate has called on government to develop a policy on Corporal Punishment to stem the practice in local schools.

In its first annual report tabled in the House of Representatives last Tuesday, the OCA said “there is much current evidence that children are still being abused in the name of discipline”.

Labelling this as ‘unsatisfactory’, the OCA said there was a need for “clear guidelines on school discipline for teachers and school administrators”, noting that teachers and principals should be assisted in dealing appropriately with disruptive, aggressive and difficult children.

The OCA said even though corporal punishment

was outlawed with the passage of the 2004 Childcare and Protection Act and was a breach of the provisions in Chapter Three of the Jamaican Constitution, “it continues to be a widespread practice within schools”.

Furthermore it said there was a need for a system for the early identification and assessment of children with potential disruptive behaviour, with provision for proper referral before harm is done.

t said while many such students are currently referred to Child Guidance Clinics, there was “an urgent need for the upgrade and expansion of these services”. The OCA said it was found that the student guidance counsellor ratio “is overloaded”. It said currently there is one guidance counsellor for approximately six hundred students.

But the Ministry of Education’s chief education officer, Jasper Lawrence, responding to the suggestion, told the Observer that the issue could be dealt with without such a policy.

“From day one we have said we don’t need to wait on a policy to address this. We can in fact seek to enforce and apply existing provisions that we have like the Childcare and Protection Act,” Lawrence said.

He said what was more urgent, was the need for a policy on child abuse.

“Corporal punishment is one aspect of child abuse. So rather than looking at a policy to look at the tip of the iceberg we need to contemplate a comprehensive policy,” he said, pointing out that it was highly possible that corporal punishment was far less practised than verbal abuse which is probably far more devastating.

“We haven’t even educated our population sufficiently to know what is child abuse and the different forms of child abuse,” Lawrence said.

He said, however, that if a policy on corporal punishment was to be contemplated, all agencies having responsibility for the care, protection and education of children would have to be involved.

“We can develop a policy, but any policy we develop would have to be cognisant of existing legislation,” Lawrence added.

Responding to the claim that there was “much current evidence of children being abused in the name of discipline”, Lawrence said while he was not in a position to either support or contradict the statement, “reports of corporal punishment made to the ministry have been investigated fully”.

The Early Childhood Commission in June said a recent survey revealed that young children were still receiving corporal punishment.

Last year, 4,915 client visits were made by children to 11 Child Guidance Clinics throughout the island.

The OCA said it has submitted a paper on “Policies and Actions to Deal with Child Abuse” to the Senate.