Caning should not be allowed in schools today. Good morning teachers.

Today my
speech will be about caning. Caning or also known as corporal punishment is lawful
in certain schools but it is done to only boys, and is regulated by the Education
Regulations (Student Discipline) 2006. However, we have heard a lot of news of
abuse canning done by teachers causing negative effects to the students. Caning
should not be allowed in schools today because it does not solve the root problem,
it reinforces the child’s negative attitude and there are other ways in
disciplining the students. First, let me go to my first point that caning does not
solve the root problems that the child may be facing. As said by Prof.Chiam Heng
Keng in The Star on July the 15th , “caning only tells the child to stop whatever
he has done, it does not address the underlying problem.” Prema (2007) also agrees
with the statement , “that it might be a quick solution but it fails to address the
root causes of the problem.” Thus, we must first know the reasons for the child to
misbehave. Sometimes the child will behave badly if he/she faces problems like
failing to fit in the environment like the school environment as an example. They
can also be influence from their neighborhood and also lack of guidance from the
home. Thus, these are the factors that are causing the uprising number of social
problems in schools causing the students to misbehave thus serving them to be
canned. Secondly, canning only reinforces the child’s negative behavior. Prema
stated that , “while it may bring about immediate compliance of the child, the
issues of physical harm as well as emotional damage to the child need to be taken
into consideration.” She then added that by canning the students, they will become
more aggressive, shifting to antisocial behavior and chronic defiance. What this
means
is, when a child gets punished, he/she will feel embarrassed and will fight back by
assaulting the teachers and involving themselves with gangsterism, bullying and
other offences punishable by caning. Prema also added that when this happens, the
use of the ‘can’ can be abused especially when frustrations aroused. This will lead
to the child believing that violence is an acceptable form of behavior and that it
is ok to punish people for their wrong doings and this would be wrong. Besides
canning , there are alternative ways to discipline the child. Lok Yim Peng had
suggested several ways such as imposing fines, having class detention even signing
a pledge to not misbehave could be done in schools. Prema also mentioned in her
article that the ministry of education should work together with other agencies
such as psychologist, school counselors and school teachers to make the
disciplinary system better. It is hope that it can solve the problems in
disciplining the students and getting them away from canning. Finally as mentioned
by Lok Yim Peng, “ canning should be the penalty of last resort, reserved for
absolute hardcore cases and should never be done publicly.” To sum up, it is time
to take other solutions to discipline the students besides caning. Canning has its
negative effects to our students and it does not solve the problems.

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