Thaindian News

Dhaka, May 29 (IANS) Bangladesh will sensitise school teachers against corporal punishment to students, a media report said.

Authorities are preparing a training manual and plan to start the first programme once the draft is ready.

A large segment of Bangladesh’s 150 million population is school-going. The literacy rate is 38.4 percent and there is a drop-out rate of nearly 50 percent, shows available data.

Teachers get no formal training whatsoever to deal with discipline issues, making most of them oblivious to damage done by corporal punishment meted out to students, The Daily Star said Sunday.

During training, school teachers get verbal instructions on imparting lessons, classroom management and are told that corporal punishment is bad, and that is it.

“They mostly get subject-based training. But there is nothing specific about corporal punishment in the training,” said a trainer requesting anonymity.

Though the government has slapped a ban on any form of physical and mental punishment to students amid public and media outcry, its action is still largely limited to policy directives to schools and teachers.

Educationists have hailed the ban on punishment to students but they feel the government needs to do a lot more to have desired results.

“It’s no easy job changing the age-old punishment-happy teaching culture,” said noted educationalist Serajul Islam Choudhury.

The Daily Star spoke to teachers’ training instructors who said no formal training is given to teachers on punishment.