The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporter

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Education Minister Jeff Lloyd wants a complete ban on corporal punishment in schools, linking beatings to high rates of violence in the country.

National Security Minister Wayne Monroe told The Tribune on Friday he is still awaiting a report on a beating incident at a Bimini primary school earlier this month that left a child nursing injuries after a police officer punished several boys. The incident put a spotlight on corporal punishment.

According to Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin, the guideline for using corporal punishment is that it it is only to be done by a senior administrator in the presence of another administrator. She said the Bimini incident, as reported, did not comply with the guideline.

Mr Lloyd, nonetheless, believes corporal punishment should be banned outright.

“I’m not going to sit by and support or endorse the physical application of corporal punishment,” he said. “It’s time for us to face the fact that the way that we have been raising our children, including how my parents raised me, it’s not been to their highest benefit. It may get you some temporary obedience. But what does that do to the long-term emotional and physical health of a child?”

“I am not by any means suggesting that we go easy on children who are disruptive or misbehaving and so on. They ought to be dealt with, seriously and deliberately, not only them but their parents. But I don’t believe that the infliction of physical, violent punishment meets the objective, that we seek to attain.

“During my time in office, I commissioned a study about corporal punishment. At that time, there was some consideration about whether it could be abolished. And I can remember clearly, my memory was that it needed to be abolished, and other more humane applications of punishment, discipline and so on be introduced.

“I stood up in the House of Assembly, and I said very clearly at that time, that I personally do not support the application of corporal punishment.”

Mr Lloyd wants a national conversation about how children are raised in The Bahamas.

“There is no mystery about why you’re seeing such violence in our Bahamian society,” he said. “These little small, supposedly peaceful, peace-loving, kindhearted people are visiting the kind of violence upon each other in our words and our attitude, and obviously also in our physical interaction with people. It’s horrendous.”

“And you see this in the neglect of children. You see this in the abuse of children. You see this in domestic violence situations. How can children find ways to resolve their conflicts, when they are being raised in an environment of violence and disrespect?

Lloyd “Can’t you see the connection? Aren’t we paying attention to how one act leads to another act, which is the most undesirable act, and that is children hurting one another, children fighting with one another and children harming one another.”

The officer in the Bimini incident has been transferred. Police are said to be investigating whether he committed a crime.

FORMER Minister of Education Jeff Lloyd says corporal punishment needs to be removed from schools and linked it to the violent behaviour we see in the country.