CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child defines “corporal” or

“physical” punishment as any punishment in which physical force is used and anticipated

to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light. The Committee also considers

as corporal punishment other non-physical but equally cruel and degrading forms of

punishment, which includes punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates,

scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child based on Tulali (2008).

According to Shaeffe , corporal punishment is a regular part of the school

experience; it is also a form of child abuse. Therefore, corporal punishment is intentional

violence inflicted on children, and it takes place on a massive scale. Lawful defenses for

teachers who hit or beat children still exist in most countries of the world. Corporal

punishment, however, has not been shown to be successful, especially in the long-term,

and it can root children embarrassment, guilt, anxiety, aggression, a lack of freedom, and

a lack of caring for others, and thus greater problems for teachers, caregivers and other

children (2004).

The DepEd guidelines for both public and private schools prohibit the use of cruel

or physically harmful punishment against students. The public school has Service Manual

call DepEd Order No. 40, s.2012 “DepEd Child Protection Policy”. The policy provides

special protection to children protection to children who are gravely threatened or

endangered by circumstance which affects their normal development.

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Statement of the Problem

The study aims to examine the implementation of the DepEd Child Protection

Policy among elementary pupils in Lapnit Elementary School.

Specifically, the study aims to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of awareness of teachers on the child protection policy

implemented by DepEd?

2. To what extent is the child protection policy implemented in the school?

3. To what extent do pupils experience:

a. verbal abuse; and

b. physical abuse?

Significance of the Study

The result of this study will provide important insights and will be beneficial to

the following:

Supervisor. The result of this study could be used as an eye-opener to the division

supervisor regarding the implementation of the Child Protection Policy.

Teachers. The results of this study can be basis how they apply the DepEd Order

no. 40, s. 2012 and improving their managerial skills in classroom. Improve

Parents. The findings of this study may help them become aware of the rights of

their children and may help them identify ways in protecting their children.

Education Student. This study can guide Education students on how to conduct

classroom management without violating the policy. It may also provide information on

how pupils can be protected from violence.

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 Future Researchers. The study is also significant to future researchers as reference

for their future studies. Hence, it will guide them on their future studies on the same

subject matter.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study will be conducted to determine the effectiveness of Child Protection

Policy focusing on anti-corporal punishment in Lapnit Elementary School. Respondents

of the study will include 148 pupils taken from a total number of 234 pupils;.and 7

teachers of Lapnit Elementary School.

The study will be conducted to examine the extent of awareness and

implementation of the Child Protection Policy in Lapnit Elementary School. It will also

identify how teachers apply the policy in terms of classroom management.

The study would be conducted from August to October 2013.

Location of the Study

The study would be conducted at Lapnit Elementary School located in Barangay

Lapnit, San Ildefonso, Bulacan. The school started with two classroom and only two

grades in 1960,. The school added one classroom in 1983 because increasing of

population. By 2003, the school already has five grade levels. The school achieved

complete elementary status by 2004.

Definition of Terms

In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the study, the following

terms are operationally defined.

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 Anti-Corporal Policy. Thisrefers to an order against to corporal policy or abusing

and bullying pupils.

Child Protection – refers to programs, services, procedures and structures that are

intended to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation, discrimination as

violence.

Corporal punishment - refers to a kind of punishment or penalty imposed for an

alleged or actual offense, which is carried out or inflicted, for the purpose of discipline,

training or control, by teacher, school administrator, an adult, or any other child who has

been given or has assumed authority or responsibility for punishment or discipline.

Discipline – the term refers to the process of making people obey the rules or act

within the norm. As used in this study, it refers to the teacher’s process of making pupils

obey the policies and regulation of the school.

Pupils – means a child regularly attends classes in any level of the basic education

system, under the supervision and tutelage of a teacher or facilitator.

School Personnel – means the persons, singly or collectively, working in public or

private school.

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 CHAPTER II

RELATED LITERATURE

The chapter presents a brief review of related literature and studies, which guided

the conceptualization of the research. Many studies and related literature are conducted in

the Philippines and other countries, but only those similar to the study are given.

Related Literature

Foreign Literature

According to Koo, pupil’s interest and accomplishment is greatly affected by the

teacher. Teacher plays a significant role in schools. Teachers are those who have a broad

and deep grasp of the subject are so called as the competent teachers and to have efficient

and effective on class management. They want to be in a school with other competent

teachers. A good school does not contain only the most qualified teacher in terms of the

subject to provide opportunities for their development of education (2004).

The teachers as provider and catalyst of difference must be conscious of the laws

ruling their position and their work place. It was talk about that consciousness is a state

that gives awareness among educators and that if educators they could be functional.

Teaching is the same to that of a ship, without readers one could not attain its dreamed

end on Emmer(2003).

Based on Suzuki, the school policies and regulations want to spell out clearly how

students can illustrate the cause values of the school. These include the mind set for

quality, honesty, managerial freedom and respect and in complete amounts the rules and

regulations are sketched to provide a conducive environment for students to profit

knowledge and teachers to bring out their duties (2007).

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Local Literature

Discipline is the guidance of children’s moral, emotional and physical

development, enabling children to take responsibility for them when they are older. It

involves teaching children the limits of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and

it makes them aware of the values and actions that are acceptable in their family and

society. Discipline can be positive, for example, praising the child for doing something

good or for stopping doing something inappropriate; or discipline can be negative, for

example, slap a child for doing something wrong. Positive discipline normally involves

helping children to understand why certain behavior is unacceptable and other behavior is

acceptable. Negative discipline focuses on doing what you are told in order to avoid

something unpleasant on Holden & Wissow( 2002)

Related Studies

Foreign Studies

Corporal punishment is one punitive means. There are many other corrective

means which parents can utilize that are useful. Discipline is only one part of informing

children about acceptable and unacceptable attitude. Other steps parents can take include:

diminishing the demand for discipline or sanction by preparing earlier to avoid dilemma

from occurring (e.g., hampering grocery shopping when a toddler is bored or annoyed);

being rational with children; modeling desired behaviors; and praising, encouraging and

rewarding children and providing them with warmth and affection (Parenting SA, 2009).

Research findings regarding the use of corporal punishment towards children point in

different directions. Some reviews of the literature suggest that corporal punishment may

lead to adverse child outcomes (Gershoff, 2002; Linke, 2002; Smith et al., 2004). For

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example, in a review of the research, Smith et al. (2004) reported a number of negative

developmental consequences for children who had experienced corporal punishment,

including: disruptive and anti-social behavior; poor academic achievement; poor

attachment and lack of parent-child warmth; mental health problems (particularly

internalizing problems such as depression); and substance and alcohol abuse. Research

has shown that corporal punishment is effective in achieving immediate child

compliance. However, Gershoff (2002), Smith et al. (2004) and others have argued that

the benefits associated with immediate child compliance can be offset by findings that

indicate corporal punishment fails to teach child self-control and inductive reasoning.

Instead, corporal punishment teaches a child to avoid engaging in behavior that is

punishable by way of force while in an adult's presence (in contrast to teaching a child

not to engage in the undesirable behavior at all). In addition, Linke (2002) argued that

corporal punishment teaches a child that problems can be addressed through physical

aggression. There is also discussion in the literature with regards to whether conclusion

such as low rates of child mistreatment of child deaths can be used to demonstrate that

profits of restricting corporal punishment and ask for the elongation of restriction on all

forms of corporal punishment in other authority.

As mentioned above, it is not enough to formulate a policy because policy comes

to action only through enforcing it. Policy implementation is directly connected to the

policy makers’ seriousness about resolving a particular issue. For example, in 20Sweden,

a total ban of corporal punishment in school and homes has been adapted in1979 by law

in reaction to the assumed connection between corporal punishment and domestic

violence to ensure social security (UNICEF, 2007). In Australia, education minister

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Lynne Kosky confirms that for 20 years corporal punishment has been banned from

public and catholic schools and remained exclusive only in some independent schools

(Tomazin, 2004). In another example, in Costa Rica, the issue of corporal punishment

was solved from a political perspective to resist the issue through effective legislation. In

this respect, in September 2009, over 30 parliamentarians from 14 countries in Latin

American gathered in San Jose, Costa Rica, to discuss the role of parliaments in

combating violence against children and agree on actions to implement effectively

relevant policies and ensure that countries allied would implement the recommendations

of the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children (UNICEF, 2009)

Local Studies

According Sanapo and Nakamura, the most common reasons for being physically

punished were disobedience, cited by 35.6% of children who had been punished, and

“pasaway” (35.3%) or being naughty, which included causing younger a brother or sister

to cry, interrupting adult conversations by what was perceived to be meaningless or

disrespectful to make a rapid clicking noise by striking together , play-fighting with other

children or siblings, making noises and disrupting order in the house. 32.9% of the

children said that they “felt nothing” after being physically punished, while 25% were

angry, 14.5% felt lonely or sad and 7.2% felt hatred A large scale comparative study

(World Studies of Abuse in the Family Environment (WorldSAFE)) which involved

surveys with over 14,000 mothers of children aged under 18, carried out between 1998

and 2003, examined parental discipline in Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Philippines, and the

United States. In the Philippines, 83% of children experienced “moderate” physical

discipline. Nearly one child in ten (9.9%) experienced harsh physical discipline. More

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than seven children in ten (71%) experienced harsh psychological discipline such as

being called names, being cursed and being threatened with rejection. “Moderate”

psychological disciplines, including being to cry out or speak with a strong, loud orto

utter a loud, sharp, piercing cry. at or being refused food was experienced by 87% of

children. Non-violent discipline, including explaining why a behavior was wrong and

telling a child to stop, was also widely used (2010).

Relevance of the Surveyed Literature and Studies to Present Research

One of the most important concerns of the department of education is to know

how pupils are being affected by giving corporal punishment by their teacher and how it

is affected to their school performance may benefits the following concerns:

The Guidance Counselors. This study may serve as a guiding principle for

guidance counselor in advising the pupils and teachers to develop positive attitudes

towards giving corporal punishment.

The School Administrators. The result of this study may help school administrator

in planning for conducting seminars that could assist the teacher on how pupils are being

affected by giving a corporal punishment.

The Teachers. The findings of this study may benefit the teacher to realize that

giving corporal punishment may greatly affect to the performance of the pupils.

The Pupils. The pupils may become aware of their performance in giving a corporal

punishment.

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Conceptual Framework

This study guided by schematic diagram, which shows the level of awareness and

the implementation of Lapnit Elementary School in the DepEd Order No.40, s. 2012

“DepEd Child Protection Policy”.

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

Dep Ed Child Lapnit Elementary

Principal
Teachers
Pupils

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Figure 1. Schematic Diagram

As shown in Figure 1, the box for independent variables reflects on awareness

and implementation of DepEd Child Protection Policy which is corporal punishment

in the school. On the other hand, the box for dependent variables reflects the Lapnit

Elementary School which is composed of principal, teachers and pupils.

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 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research design of research used in this study, the data

gathering techniques, the sampling procedures, and the data analysis scheme.

Research Design

The study will utilize the descriptive research design.

Data Gathering Techniques

A letter was sent to the Office of the School Principal of Lapnit Elementary

School for the approval of the gathering of data. After approvals meet, the data needed

for the study were gathered through the use of the researcher-designed questionnaire on

child protection policy.

A brief request to the respondents to supply the needed information and an

advance appreciation for their cooperation is attached to the questioners. On each item in

the questionnaire through inspection was done.

The questionnaire is composed of three parts. Part I is consist of 10-item main

questionnaire on the level of awareness of the child protection policy.

Part II is consisting of 15-item questionnaire about way of disciplining. The five-

point liker scale is used for the responses on each item.

Part III is questionnaire for the pupils is consisting of 8-items about if they

experience physical or verbal abuse.

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Sampling Procedures

The respondent of this study are the 7 teacher and 148 pupils on Lapnit

Elementary School during School Year 2013-2014. The total enumeration scheme to used

since the number of respondent is manageable. The data gathering from various grade

level in Lapnit Elementary School is done for 2 days.

Grade Level Total Number Survey Number

Grade I 41 26

Grade II 64 40

Grade III 28 18

Grade IV 38 24

Grade V 28 18

Grade VI 35 22

Total 234 148

Data Analysis Scheme

The data collected were analyzed and interpreted with the use of count and mean.

To able to determine the level of awareness on Child Protection Policy among their

respondent and count of physical abuse or verbal abuse, the mean is determined using

formula shown below:

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 ∑𝑥
𝑥̅ =
n

Where x ̅ -- weight mean

X –value of each items

N – Number of items

The total weighted scores given respondents to each item is divided by the

number of respondents to determine the mean for every item in each area in the teacher

awareness on Child Protection Policy.

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 LITERATURE CITED

Holden, G.W. (2002) “Perspectives on the effects of corporal punishment: Comment on

Wissow, L.S. (2002) “Child discipline in the first three years of life” in N. Halfon, K.T.
McLearn and M.A. Schuster (eds.) Child Rearing in America: Challenges Facing Parents
with Young Children, Cambridge University Press, New York (pp.146–177).

http://plan-international.org/learnwithoutfear/files/philippines-toward-a-child-friendly-
education-environment-english)

www.childinfo.org/files/Progress_for_Children-No.8_EN.pdf)

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