Overview of recommendations on violence in schools

Summary: A compilation of the recommendations from each regional consultation for the UN Study on Violence Against Children related to violence in schools and educational settings.

The Carribean:

• There should be an end to corporal punishment. Instead, the use of non-violent disciplinary measures should be encouraged.
• Mentoring and teacher training programmes that include studies in psychology, communication skills and conflict resolution should be introduced into schools as an ongoing process.
• Young people should be educated about their rights and responsibilities so that they can understand the positive and negative implications of their behaviour.

South Asia:

Gender-based violence

• Undertake legal reform and revision of penal code to include sexual harassment and sexual attacks in schools and ban all forms of corporal punishment;
• Include gender violence in education conferences, teacher training and in head teacher manuals and provide comprehensive school counselling and guidance programmes, involving teachers, students and parents;
• Include gender equity promotion and equal participation as part of the curriculum and child-friendly schools, as well as life skills education- saying ‘no’ to adults;
• Provide home-based and community-based recovery services (by NGOs, civil society and government);
• Provide games for girls, sports for boys, and peer clubs, child-to-child programmes;
• Collect baseline data and annual reports on gender-related incidents; monitor through CRC bodies.
• Undertake legal reform and revision of penal code to include sexual harassment and sexual attacks in schools and ban all forms of corporal punishment;

Child sexual abuse

• Include CRC in teacher training curricula as well as action against child sexual abuse and life-skills (including sexual health issues, gender relations, masculinities);
• Establish child protection policies in schools, develop a monitoring mechanism and involve children in developing action to address child sexual abuse, through child clubs, child-to-child programmes, and peer counsellors.
• Include CRC in teacher training curricula as well as action against child sexual abuse and life-skills (including sexual health issues, gender relations, masculinities)

Physical and psychological punishment

• Pass and implement laws banning corporal punishment and promote child participation in parliaments;
• Increase budget allocations on education;
• Include training on positive discipline methods in teacher curricula and address the causes of violent behaviour of teachers and students;
• Re-align methodologies and structures based on a national cultural basis; link systems between policies and children;
• Involve parent-teacher associations, increase child and youth forums’ participation in setting school rules and provide or expand counselling services/social work in schools;
• Provide child-friendly learning (including life-skills programmes) and learning spaces and address congestion in schools;
• Carry out research and monitoring on attendance and drop-out rates.

West and Central Africa

Corporal punishment in the school:

• increase the number of education advisers and sensitize teachers about corporal punishment;
• create councils for discipline in schools that can work in partnership with children’s organizations;
• establish and disseminate internal rules of conduct;
• sensitize education inspectors about corporal punishment;
• ensure children’s security in schools;
• parents have to accompany younger children to school;
• offer alternative punitive measures.

Violence in schools and institutions

• Abolish corporal punishment in schools and propose alternative non-violent discipline methods to teachers in consultation with children;
• Train and raise awareness among national educational personnel on respecting the rights of the child: school inspectors, directors, teachers, children and the personnel who work in educational establishments;
• Develop children’s committees in schools whose role is to lead awareness-raising activities among other children on the prevention of violence (promote peer education). Establish links between the children’s committees and social structures;
• Create and support advice centres in schools and train counsellors on listening to and advising children who are victims of violence and on the rights of children;
• Raise awareness and inform parents of the exploitative situation in which some children find themselves when they are entrusted to Koranic teachers and other institutions;
• Define and apply minimum standards for taking care of children in Koranic schools with the aim of improving the quality of life and education for children. Document and distribute the good practices of some Koranic schools;
• Encourage the community and parents to be more involved in the school and other institutions that are frequented by children, including Koranic schools, to better prevent and respond to violence against children;
• Strengthen research on situations (causes and consequences) of violence inflicted on children in schools and institutions.

Latin America

• Legislative reform: Specifically it is important to achieve common standards across the various national regulations that establish the minimum age for marriage, for enrolment and leaving school, the minimum age for employment and of criminal responsibility. This should also include criteria for prevention and protection;
• Corporal punishment must be eradicated; countries should explicitly include in their legislation the prohibition of corporal punishment and humiliation as methods of discipline
• Encourage educational policies that promote respect and tolerance for difference;
• Involve those elements of society that are closest to children (family, school, community) -- training adults in communication skills with children and adolescents, creating an atmosphere within which their personalities can develop in a healthy way and their rights and dignity can by respected;
• In the case of sexual abuse, train children and adolescents in techniques of self protection, and the capabilities of adults should also be strengthened; in addition, develop the capacity of protection systems within the legal framework to respond immediately when required;
• On youth violence: · Promote preventive measures at community and municipal level, with the support of national public policies, since this broadens children’ access to educational, healthcare, recreational and work opportunities, and promotes their participation in society in general;
• Address the fact that there are no statistics on violence in schools in the countries of the region, perhaps by looking at cases recorded by the justice system;
• Implement national surveys as proposed by Education Ministries (in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia) which are used from the time of entry into school and carried out annually thereafter. Another method is the use of surveys in schools to gather information about activities to protect students from violence;
• Academic organizations and centres must play a leading role in persuading government authorities to develop policies of protection and prevention based on science and hard evidence;
• On military schools: Monitor any military schools admitting people below the age of 18, and institutions with a hierarchical structure where children or adolescents are in residence, and where teaching involves risk to their development and their physical and psychological safety. This monitoring should look for any type of learning that involves rigorous authoritarian or repressive discipline, based on the administration of punishment or physical force, which is damaging for holistic development

North America

• Invest in research and knowledge dissemination on effective prevention and intervention strategies for bullying, addressing the bystander and gender roles in particular;
• Improve communication and supportive action between parents and schools;
• Teach child victims skills to address bullying, including being firm, setting boundaries and accessing adult support;
• Help all children develop pro-social attitudes and skills;
• Promote a culture of respect at school and in the home.

East Asia Pacific:

• Develop appropriate policies which include: prevention of violence, monitoring and reporting mechanisms, budget issues, curriculum that would integrate conflict resolution, human rights, gender, and child rights;
• Develop appropriate legislation that would ban all forms of corporal punishment in schools, including monitoring systems for effective enforcement and protection;
• Conduct pre- and in-service training courses for headmasters, school administrators, teachers, peer counsellors of pre-school and primary schools on child rights, child psychology, and child-friendly learning environments;
• Increase awareness on child rights, especially on learning standards in education, to promote violence-free and child-friendly schools.

Middle East and North Africa

• Introduce alternative pedagogic and educational methodologies, such as socio-psychological intervention in upbringing and education. Train teachers on the CRC.
• Form a permanent committee in schools to supervise teachers and tutors, collect information and data on teachers applying violence, adopt decisions to stop them and render them accountable, and ensure proper liaison between teachers and pupils to prohibit the use of violence.
• Set up mechanisms for social monitoring in schools; paying heed to the economic status of teachers and improving their working, professional and environmental conditions.
• Enforce relevant legislation to ban the use of violence in schools, investigate and prosecute the perpetrators, ensuring that the child is not victimized in proceedings and that his/her privacy is respected.
• Set-up mechanisms in schools, including child committees and parents’ boards, to address the issue of child rights and violence in schools together.
• Establish accountability standards in the recruitment and performance review of teachers and consult children in this process.
• Reward teachers who promote alternative methods of discipline and child-participatory teaching methods.
• Develop guidelines for the early identification of cases of violence at school.
• Protect children who bring complaints from retaliation.
• Carry out comprehensive studies on violence in schools to better understand the problem and develop programmes to address and monitor the issue. Establish a mechanism for disseminating research on violence against children in the region.
• Create information centres and hotlines dealing with violence in schools.
• Raise awareness of the negative impact of corporal punishment among parents, teachers and other professionals working in schools, and provide capacity building on positive discipline or other alternative methods of resolving conflict peacefully.

Europe and Central Asia

Responsibility of teachers and other staff

• Ban all humiliating or degrading treatment and punishment in schools; train teachers and others in alternative measures of discipline.
• Equip teachers with the capacity to intervene at an early stage.
• Provide an independent and confidential system of complaints and consultation in all schools, and set up hotlines with the authority to engage with school authorities.
• Involve children in elaborating and agreeing rules and disciplinary measures.
• Include violence prevention in the school curriculum.
• Adopt and disseminate widely interactive and engaging teaching methods.
• Establish mechanisms for school-to-home cooperation.
• Apply the same child protection policy and standards in residential schools, all military schools and other special schools.
• Establish a monitoring system to evaluate and assess change.
• Peer-to-peer violence
• Define violence in school and devise a common strategy for collecting comparative data.
• Collect and make accessible examples of good practice, methodological tools etc. and promote collaboration and cooperation among researches and practitioners.
• Support schools staff (not only teachers) with training, including in peaceful conflict resolution.
• Advocate for serious research on the legal frameworks.
• Ensure that policy against violence is a permanent preoccupation and not a one-shot action.
• Support campaigns made and conducted by students.
• Promote a supportive framework for children in schools, working towards a pupils’ charter.
• Take into greater account the damaging influence of the media and encourage responsible journalism.

Eastern and Southern Africa

• All countries are urged to enact domestic legislation to prohibit corporal punishment, including within schools, in order to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
• Support the implementation of such domestic legislation by sensitizing and training teachers in positive and effective alternatives to violence. Institutional frameworks, policies, programmes and resources:
• Identify structures such as Parent Teacher Associations and parent clubs to monitor compliance of bans against corporal punishment.
• Involve children themselves in making decisions about discipline.
• Ensure flexible school timetables to accommodate HIV/AIDS affected and infected children.
• Awareness, advocacy and training:
• Countries must provide education, training and practical alternatives to corporal punishment to teachers.
• School curriculum should include child rights education.

To see full reports on each regional consultation, go to: http://www.violencestudy.org/a489