Corporal Punishment Act in Public Schools: A Phenomenological Analysis of Perceptions of Practitioners

Abstract

Corporal punishment (CP) is a conspicuous and serious matter of Pakistani schools. In response to this prevalent social problem the government of Pakistan like other countries has legislated against corporal punishments through Corporal Punishment Act, 2010 which restricts CP of every type in all educational institutes of the country. The said policy was promulgated to secure the child rights in the country but the flip side of the policy presents a different picture. This paper aims at investigating challenges faced by of the elementary public-school teachers as policy practitioners about the ban on corporal punishment by the government. This paper is based on qualitative social research methodology and used phenomenological research approach. Phenomenological interviews were used to collect the data until data reached at saturation. The data was analyzed by following the overall process guided by Creswell. Major derived themes from data were Perceptions of teachers regarding ban on Corporal Punishment, Post Corporal Punishment Legislation Challenges and Opinion of teachers regarding Government policy on CP followed by several sub-themes. It was concluded that the state vision to promote child welfare is hardly seen through its policies as at the end the welfare of the target group must be assured not doubted.

Keywords

• Corporal punishment, teachers, students, discipline, state.