More trainings for teachers

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Public school teachers are asking for more support and training from an international organization that advocates children’s rights in providing them with more lectures and seminars on disciplining their students well to prevent corporal and inappropriate punishment.

Plan International, a non-government organization that fights for the protection of children’s rights and safety, conducted an orientation yesterday for public school teachers in Cebu City.

The teachers were oriented on PLAN’s “Learn without Fear” campaign, which focuses on the prevention of all forms of violence against children in schools like corporal punishment, bullying, sexual harassment, emotional abuse and peer-to-peer violence.

The organization’s focus on this campaign in the Philippines is on corporal punishment and sexual harassment.

During the discussion, teachers opened up that disciplining students can be hard especially those handling a large number of students in one class and they requested for more training to learn more about children’s personalities and different behavior management techniques.

Most of the sentiments of the teachers that were raised to PLAN, was that it was hard to discipline the students on their own, without the help of the parents and family.

John Diviva, LWF coordinator of Plan International Philippines, explained that this concern is expected since the family plays a huge role in a student’s attitude in school.

“Family background and personal circumstances, influence on peers and media, lack of awareness of children’s rights, fear, inability of authority figures to respond to cases, and lack of policies are some of the factors cited as contributing to incidences of violence in schools,” added Diviva, saying these are just some of the findings of the study. (FREEMAN)