violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“If teachers talk badly to us, if they do not take care about what they say and do not respect us,how do you expect us to respect them? They are not good role models for us.”Student, Indian Ocean subregion, 2006 XIV4vide guidance and support to school headsand teachers, helping them shape the climateoutside the classroom by changing the way inwhich the school is managed. Codes of conductshould be developed and enforced throughprocesses that give a voice to every stakeholder,for example through student councils and parents’associations. The climate thus createdwithin the school can spill over into the widercommunity when, for example, students carryhome the values and habits they learn in schooland then carry them through their lives, intotheir workplaces, relationships, and so on.Supporting school staffThere are almost 43 million teachers at the primaryand secondary school levels around theworld, in addition to an unknown number ofteachers in pre-schools and other educationalsettings, and their potential to act as rolemodels is immense. 183 Teachers are among anycountry’s most important agents of social developmentand change, since they make essentialcontributions to the emotional and cognitivedevelopment of current generations of childrenand thus to future generations of mature andresponsible citizens. Even when children aresubject to violence in their homes and communities,teachers can provide them with modelsof non-violence from a very early age.Good teacher recruitment and training shouldbe at the very root of any country’s long-termand comprehensive strategy to reduce violence,not just in schools but in the whole ofsociety. In reality, however, many countriesundervalue teachers, pay little attention torecruiting the best candidates, and then offerthem insufficient pre- and in-service training,low salaries and poor working conditions,often in overcrowded and ill-equipped schoolsand classrooms. In most countries, teachersare already overburdened, but they are underincreasing pressure to take on more responsibilityfor addressing violence in their schools,though they often lack the training and expertisefor this added responsibility. If, despite allthis, schools attract good teachers, they thenhave difficulty retaining them.All of these factors should be taken intoaccount when assessing needs to changethe way teaching candidates are recruited,trained, and supported. Teachers cannot carrythe whole burden, so any assessment of theirneeds should look at ways in which educationauthorities, school heads and other schoolstaff, parents and communities may be underminingteachers’ work, and at ways in whichthey could be doing more to support it.Most Governments that responded to the Studyquestionnaire 184 reported that they, NGOs orpartnerships between the two were supportingteacher training programmes that addressedviolence. However, this training was often notcontinuous, systematic and sustainable. Mostof the training programmes addressed preventionand protection; some addressed rehabilitationof victims or offenders; only a few countriesmentioned redress (Gambia, Nigeria, theSeychelles, Singapore, Switzerland, and Thailand),penalties (Cameroon, Singapore, SriLanka, Switzerland, and Thailand), methodsfor educating students in violence prevention143Violence against children in schools and educational settings