Author : Nevine Henry Rezk Saad Wasef
Source : MENAPAR Conference
Date of Publication : 10/2016
Abstract :
Egypt’s government has outlawed corporal punishment (CP) in schools by decree but to date has
stopped short of fully prohibiting it in law. Despite the stated policy, CP continues to be widely
practiced in both public and private schools. Survey data show that as many as 90 percent of
Egyptian students experience school-based CP (NCCM and UNICEF 2005). Reduction in CP
rates has emerged as an important concern for educational administration and public policy, not
only because it is outlawed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but because research
has consistently found that CP leads to poorer educational outcomes and reduces students’ ability
to learn. CP thus undermines achievement of the principal metrics for public management
performance in the education sector, student learning outcomes. Reducing CP has proven difficult
because the practice has become so deeply embedded in society, in schools, and in teachers’
classroom management. Its elimination thus poses a complex challenge requiring a mix of public
policy, human resource management, and administrative reforms. This paper brings a new
perspective to this debate, examining elimination of CP through a governance lens and applying
this approach to analyze this challenge in Egypt. It uses an original dataset drawn from a survey
of 300 students, parents, and teachers covering both public and private schools. It analyzes CP
practices in Egyptian public and private schools, their perceived impacts on students, and
stakeholder views on alternative reform measures. It addresses the research question, How do CP
practices and attitudes on CP’s disciplinary role and impact differ between public and private
school stakeholders in Egypt? To explore this question, it applies the data to test six hypotheses
covering public-private school differences regarding rates of CP use, teachers’ attitudes and
beliefs on CP and its disciplinary role (administrative acceptability), parents’ attitudes toward CP
(social acceptability) is more accepted by public school teachers and school officials), parental
engagement in schools and expectations regarding school responsiveness (governance), student
attitudes and experience regarding CP and its impacts, and effectiveness of CP as a disciplinary
tool as reported by these stakeholders. It also examines gendered experience with CP. The
analysis draws on the survey and interviews with ministry officials, NGOs, international
organizations, and other experts. Study findings confirm the unacceptably high levels of CP
practices in Egyptian schools, that the use of CP differs strongly between public and private
school students; male-female differences, by contrast, are more limited than anticipated. CP
victims and their parents report that it leads to higher levels of anger as well as reduced student
respect for teachers. The study finds that school administrators and social workers do not provide
an effective check on CP in part because they are also participants in CP themselves, underscoring
the difficulty of public management reform where there are systemic failures and potential norm
conflicts between stakeholder beliefs and the policies adopted. Parents, teacher, and students
agreed that teachers require concrete, more effective alternatives to CP to manage student
misbehavior, notably promotion of positive discipline methods and training in their use. The study
finds that private school teachers and parents hold similar views, as do parents in both types of
school, but that public school teachers are significantly more favorable toward CP. This supports
the conclusion that private school governance is more responsive to stakeholder interests than
public school governance. The study concludes that elimination of CP will requires a more
holistic approach involving not only tightening regulations and providing training for teachers, but
strengthening public school governance by engaging parents and students as allies in reforming
disciplinary methods and, more generally, as engaged and informed stakeholders in school
decision-making. Together, these measures offer a pathway to narrow the gap between policy and
implementation, to strengthen public management and outcomes from the public education sector.
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