Fijian advocates reject call to reintroduce corporal punishment in schools

Content warning: This article discusses violence against children.

The call to reintroduce corporal punishment in schools by the Fijian Teachers Association (FTA) has been met with strong opposition from advocates, mental health professionals, and those with lived experiences under the system.

Last week, the FTA general secretary Paula Manumanunitoga told a public forum in Suva that the reinstatement of corporal punishment was needed due to a loss of control in classrooms since it was banned.

Manumanunitoga said teachers are facing abuse and no longer feel safe in their classrooms.

He said teachers are being "sworn at, had objects thrown at them, were verbally abused, and had their hair pulled".

"It's a serious matter. The FTA is worried about the country," he said.

He said corporal punishment would be a "deterrent for students".

"I was a primary school teacher, if I lay a belt on my table the students would not make a noise. But when that belt disappears, there's havoc in the classroom," Manumanuitoga said.

Under Fiji's 2013 Constitution and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Fiji ratified in 1993, all forms of inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment are prohibited.

The Fijian government has a zero-tolerance policy on abuse and corporal punishment.

'A cry for help'

Mental health professional and radio host Matthew Galukvakadua also rejected the proposition, urging Fiji to move forward with "understanding and support" instead of reinstating "traumatic" punishment.

"Getting hit with the hose pipe or a wooden stick is not something we would like to relive, and it did make us fear those that we were learning from," he told RNZ Pacific.

Galuvakadua believes corporal punishment is one of the main reasons a lot of kids would drop out or feel like they're not good enough when it comes to learning.

He acknowledged that teachers "feel they have lost control", but pointed to wider issues such as lack of parental involvement and inadequate support for Fijian youth.

"There is a division between those who continue to live and think in the past and how things used to work… and those who want to find better solutions," he said.

Galukvakadua said that many children only want a "fighting chance".

"[Children] are told they're not good enough, they're bad, they'll never amount to anything… at some point teachers say this, especially when they can't get through to the child.

"I've heard them tell students how bad they are, they'll never amount to anything their whole life. Having an adult tell you that sort of thing is the worst feeling ever, and in front of your peers, makes its worse. Things need to change," he said.

He said change will only be possible when there is someone who can listen to and understand what children are going through - and that there are not enough programmes around resilience-based approaches.

"Many pushing for corporal punishment tend to forget that at the end of the day children can have problems as well. It's just a cry for help."

'Insane we are considering this'

Artist and advocate Sachiko Soro, who works closely with a variety of Fijian youth, pointed to deeper systemic problems in education.

"We need to empower our youth to communicate more about their feelings," she told RNZ Pacific.

"This is why creative subjects are such an important pathway to enable this. However, we do not have any creative subjects in our outdated curriculum," she said.

Soro said teachers are "absolutely overwhelmed and under-resourced" and that corporal punishment would not solve what she believes to be a structural crisis.

"I feel our Fijian teachers are absolutely overwhelmed and under-resourced and someone thinks the solution to the crumbling of our education system is corporal punishment… it is not.

"Let's equip and support our teachers better. We need the ratio of teachers to students to be at a more manageable level. We need more mental health support for both teachers and students."

She said Fiji's focus on addressing this issue is all wrong.

"Our children are our future and we need to support our students and teachers to get the learning outcomes that we need as a society without resorting to violence. It's insane we are even considering this," she added.

According to a report by the Fijian government and Unicef published in October last year, the estimated economic cost of violence against children in Fiji stood at FJ$459.82 million annually, equivalent to 4.23 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The same report found that more than 80 percent of children aged 1-14 years had experienced some form of violent discipline at home in the month prior to the survey.

Corporal punishment is 'traumatic'

A human rights advocate and a former Young New Zealander of the Year, Shaneel Lal has strongly opposed the call to reintroduce corporal punishment in schools, emphasising their personal experiences as someone who grew up in Fiji's education system.

"I grew up in Fiji's education system at a time when corporal punishment was widely practised," Lal, who uses they/them pronouns, told RNZ Pacific.

"I was hit with 30cm and 1m rulers, a duster on bunched fingers, hardcover books across my head, and even a hosepipe. Often, the punishment had no reason or proportionality," Lal said.

Lal recalled students being punished for small infractions, such as "forgetting homework" or being "too feminine for a boy".

"We should never return to those days, if, indeed, we have ever fully left them," Lal said.

"Physical punishment is violence. It has no place in an education system. If it is unacceptable to hit an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex to change their behaviour, why would we do it to a child whose brain is still developing?"

Lal warned that corporal punishment causes trauma and long-term harm.

"Children are neurological sponges: they internalise what they see. If we hit children, we teach them that violence is an acceptable way to control others. Instead, adults must model pro-social behaviour."

While acknowledging the pressures teachers face, Lal stressed that the solution is not state-sanctioned violence against children, but investment in education.

"We need investment in better staffing, better pay, better training, and access to mental-health support and specialist services.

"To understand the pressures in Fiji's classrooms, we also have to understand Fiji's reality," Lal added.

"Some children go to school hungry, without adequate uniforms or shoes, stressed and tired, and in the worst cases, having already experienced violence at home.

"You cannot beat trauma out of a child. Their needs cannot be met with violence… there is no evidence beating children solves behavioural issues, there is abundant evidence that social investment does."

Similarly to Lal, Galukvakadua emphasised the need for mental health services in schools.

"Fiji youth today are breaking the generation of silence, that cultural silence, that we once… we need to support that progress, not shut it down with violence."