Will Madani caning students end school violence? By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

Malaysiakini : “We must also admit that schools mirror society. Moral, religious, and civic education as taught has yet to nurture a genuine culture of respect and empathy.”

- PKR lawmaker Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad

COMMENT | The most common solution you will hear when dealing with the anti-social and criminal behaviour going on in schools is the claim that everything could be solved with a good beating.

Sri Aman MP Doris Sophia Brodi seems to think that our education system has produced a “fragile” generation, and she hearkens back to a time when "spare the rod and spoil the child" was the foundation for creating productive adults.

Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng believes a surveillance state and a good beating will ameliorate these problems. Of course, there is talk of increasing police presence around schools.

BlueLynx2013 : We need dedicated teachers who have a passion for profession. Unfortunately, the system allows one particular group, even though the ability is highly questionable.

Cheli Tamilselvam : When it comes to commenting on schools and education, everyone seems to have a say and claim that they have the ‘know how’. Has anyone even bothered asking the teachers who are the ones on the ground handling all these children on a daily basis? 

I have been an educator and still am for more than 40 years now and have eaten more salt than most of you have eaten rice to speak up. Caning cannot restore good discipline; love, respect and care does! Adding another subject on Character does not solve the problem but adds stress and anxiety amongst the teachers as an additional workload to us. 

Schools are not prisons and rehabilitation centres; they are gardens where children grow and blossom to becoming who they are potentially created to be. Bullying is not taught but caught through what the children see on social media when people abuse their roles and positions and get away with it. 

It is not rocket science as they say. It is as clear as daylight! The only voice we hear when anything happens in schools are from DISENGAGED individuals who have no clue as to what really happens in schools. It is time to go back to basics for us as a nation. It is time to empower students to take ownership of the own education. 

It is time to respect and enable teachers to do their core business in teaching well. It is time to engage parents from the beginning of the child’s education and it is time to enlist the authorities to come in partnership with schools to raise up our children. It really takes a village to raise a child!

Read it all here......