Originally published in The Valiant Vol. 1 No. 16 June to December 2014
Child rights activists were victorious when the Department of Education (DepEd) beefed up the Child Protection policy in schools. While it only means well for the rights and welfare of students, the policy became a way for some students to feel invincible especially from the classroom teachers’ discipline measures.
The Child Protection Policy of the DepEd ultimately aims to achieve an “effective implementation of a zero tolerance policy for any act of child abuse, exploitation, violence, discrimination, bullying and other forms of abuse”.
In particular, it enumerated the prohibited acts against children which include child abuse, discrimination against children, child exploitation, violence against children in school, corporal punishment and bullying or peer abuse.
According to DepEd, the most number of child abuse cases referred to the Central Office came from the National Capital Region (NCR) and Region 4-A from August 2010 to present, with 59 cases from the former and 22 from the latter.
DepEd statistics reveal that 3 out of 10 children in Grades 1-3 and almost 5 out of 10 from high school experience physical violence committed by teachers. Meanwhile, approximately 4 out of 10 children in Grades 1-3 and 7 out of 10 in higher grade levels have complained about verbal abuse by their teachers.
Worse, 36.53% of children in Grades 4-6 and 42.88% of high school students surveyed indicated they have experienced verbal-sexual violence in school and 11.95% of children in Grades 4-6 and 17.60% of high school students have experienced inappropriate touching.
With these disturbing figures in mind, the implementation of said policy is highly urgent. Lo and behold, the department’s information campaign regarding the policy has been extremely effective that children gained enough courage to speak out for themselves in times of direct assault from difficult peers.
But some students took advantage of this “protection” enshrined by the policy, with classroom teachers as its main target. It is an open book how challenging it is to teach in the public school system. Some students take with them this sort of “shield” to assert themselves from teachers’ reprimand, let alone sanctions due to misbehavior.
The situation is being worsened with the fact that teachers also experience undue humiliation, when some parents go directly to national media to air their grievances instead of having the issue settled with the concerned agencies and authorities first.
This could have been prevented if the underlying provisions of Child Protection policy are strictly observed. Highlighted in the policy is that, “the identity or other information that may reasonably identify the pupil or student shall remain confidential…” as well as “…the identity of a respondent-teacher shall likewise be kept confidential…”
The lack of guidance counselors in schools also aggravates the scenario. In Camp Crame High School alone, classroom teachers also serve as guidance counselors since there are limited if no applicants at all in the division. Certainly, there are particular skills needed to become an effective school guidance counselor. A classroom teacher, who is already overworked yet underpaid, could only do so much.
In a society where violence against children thrives, the Child Protection policy is such a great panacea. Proponents of this policy must perform a continuous monitoring of its implementation so that no one among the stakeholders feel left out or stepped on for another. #
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