Equality of the sexes: girls face caning like the boys

 

Unruly schoolgirls face stricter disciplining

Education ministry says proposal being studied

 Kuala Lumpur (AP). Teachers in Malaysia would be allowed to whip girls as well as boys under a proposal the government is considering to boost classroom discipline, a senior official said yesterday.

The government already permits boys to be whipped with a rattan cane in schools for offences such as smoking, vandalism and causing physical harm to others.

Deputy Education Minister Noh Omar said school heads and representatives of parent-teacher associations and religious groups at an education seminar earlier this week called for harsher punishment, including caning, for girls.

“Girls also cause serious problems. It is just a proposal. We are studying it,” Omar said.

Lok Yim Pheng, secretary-general of the National Union of the Teaching Profession, who attended the seminar, said corporal punishment was needed to rein in unruly girls.

“Sometimes the girls are even more daring than the boys,” she said. “It’s high time to put these girls in order by caning them.” However, Lok said, girls should be caned only by a female teacher and only on the hands and legs.

Critics say caning for girls would be too harsh.

Criminologist P. Sundramoorthy was quoted by The Star newspaper as saying that caning is brutal and may not act as a deterrent.

As published in Gulf News, 29 November 2007.

Picture credit: Ronald Searle.

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