Why this matters
Corporal punishment in schools violates children's right to education, health and development, and to freedom from violence, and has been shown to negatively affect educational outcomes and contribute to school drop-out. Governments are obliged under international law
Why this matters
Corporal punishment in schools violates children's right to education, health and development, and to freedom from violence, and has been shown to negatively affect educational outcomes and contribute to school drop-out. Governments are obliged under international law to prohibit corporal punishment for all children in all schools and ensure that school discipline methods respect children’s human dignity and conform with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
‘Our teachers normally used to beat us but that has ended now’
Quote by a Pupil interviewed at the end of EducAid’s teacher training programme at his school
Sierra Leone, West Africa, a beautiful country ridden with poverty, devastated by war, Ebola and endemic corruption and tired of being described as ‘having great potential’, is the home of the organisation EducAid.
On the back of a student exchange visit, two British friends started a small scholarship programme in 1994. Over time, a network of schools has grown up, providing high-quality, education to some of the most vulnerable. EducAid's school fees are not monetary. Instead, what is expected from students is excellent attendance, excellent behaviour and excellent effort – things which are, in any case, priceless. Each day, the children and young people at EducAid's schools take responsibility for their learning and education by ensuring they provide these things each day when showing up for school.
EducAid believes that education must serve the social, moral and cognitive needs of children and society. What we teach is important but how we teach is more so!
We work for academic excellence but will never be satisfied with that alone. Our strategies for creating a respectful environment for learning include:
- Agreed expectations whereby students and teacher negotiate together what they can reasonably expect of each other and then hold each other to account for living up to them;
- Stars and Ubuntu stars rewarding good work and kind behaviour respectively which encourages a focus on the positive rather than the negative to avoid where possible the need for sanctions;
- Restorative practices rather than retributive, encouraging staff and students to restore relationships as a priority over punishing for offences;
- Peer mediation, involving trained students to counsel their colleagues and resolve minor conflicts;
- Group study and peer learning whereby students learn to help each other as they work through pre-prepared materials that cover the entire syllabus and providing critical thinking and values development opportunities as they go through;
- ‘Every Voice Counts’ strategies engaging all members of the school community in taking responsibility for improving school life, addressing injustices and keeping each other safe;
- Shared Leadership Teams involving students and staff to take responsibility for Safety (with a particular concern for child protection and safe-guarding issues), Finance (planning the use of the school miscellaneous budget), Logistics (organising food distribution, maintenance issues and more) etc.
“ Respect has many meanings but for us respect means that all members of the community feel safe, feel listened to and know their voice is taken seriously. ”
We believe that this respec