On 27 September 2020, Mrs. Prakairatana Thontiravong, National Human Rights Commissioner, Acting the NHRCT Chairperson, expressed concerns over several news reports on violence against school children, especially the latest case of a teacher at a private school assaulting a kindergarten child. Mrs. Thontiravong said that the mistreatment or violence against a child clearly violated the security of person, contradicting the principle to protect children and youth from violence or unfair treatment as stipulated in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, Article 71, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37 (a). It is also against the Child Protection Act 2003, Section 26 (1), prohibiting any person to act or refrain from doing or abusing the child's body or mind which is a criminal offense, and also the Early Childhood Development Act, 2019, Section 5 (2) to protect children from any abuse.
          Mrs. Thontiravong further said that violent behavior against students by teachers or educational personnel reflected that they lack professional teaching skills, problem management skills and maturity. The Ministry of Education, therefore, needs to take urgent measures to solve the problem, including the provision of intensive training for teachers in early childhood schools on the subject of educational psychology and developmental psychology with periodic assessment in order to assure teachers’ right attitude towards early childhood development. At the same time, teacher colleges or universities must provide curriculum fostering the spirit of teachers, morality, knowledge, skills and competence appropriate for knowledge and development of early childhood students to prevent similar problems in the future.
          “Changing a child’s behavior has a variety of constructive and effective methods for child development, such as positive discipline, counseling, behavior therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy without need of any violence against children. All teachers have to realize that they are not authorized to act on or to touch a student’s body unnecessarily, except in the situation of helping them. Moreover, should there be a student being abused in school, all educational personnel who witness the situation must dissuade the wrongdoings, protect children from all violence and notify the incident to the school management”, Acting the NHRCT Chairperson finally said.
 

02/10/2020