Teachers should earn respect

Educators must toil to retrieve the lofty social stature they once had

It hurt to see on TV recently how a male teacher caught on the school CCTV dragged a five-year-old girl out of the classroom and taking cover of a tall bush, slapped her soft face repeatedly. Then clasping her hand, as if nothing had happened, he took her back to the class. Can we imagine the imprint on the child’s mind, her hatred for teachers and schooling, the incident would have left?

In 2012, I was waiting to chair a meeting of the school management committee of a government primary school. My eyes fell on a young woman teacher in the next classroom brutally hitting a girl who, sitting on the floor, barely reached 10 inches up. Horrified, I screamed at her.

“How dare you beat the baby?”

“She’s not listening to me!”

“Listening? Look at her age,” I was livid. “Since you don’t know corporal punishment is banned, I’m going to report you.”

She started apologising, but I did not spare her. No teacher ever beat a student in the school as long as I was there.

There could be many reasons for teachers to hit students. The first is personal frustration with life, relationships or even some kind of mental illness. The second is they are bad at teaching and cannot engage students, are ill-read, and knowing their failures, turn their anger on the student. The third is their lack of love for the profession and for students.