By Tupuola Terry Tavita

The rights of children is enveloped within the confines of the rights of parents.

This is the strong message from Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malieleagaoi at the opening of Vaiusu Primary School’s new classrooms last Friday.

“The rights of children are encompassed within the rights of parents,” said Tuilaepa.

“They include the rights of children to a good education, to security in the home, the right to have good grounded values and provided with the basic necessities such as food, shelter, etc. These are what parents are obligated to provide their children.

“To say that children have the right to do whatever they please means parents are not providing for their children the necessary discipline they require.”

With escalating incidences of inter-school fighting and what appears to be a general disrespect towards teachers and elders from students, the prime minister said his government is seriously reviewing a return to corporal punishment.

“Since the issue of reintroducing corporal punishment came out, there hasn’t been anyone against it. Government has been tempted to direct the Attorney General to immediately start drawing up the necessary legislation.”

The Prime Minister also had some useful advice to the school committees.

“Some committees including teachers have followed the example of paying themselves allowances from the school fund every time they meet. Attendances to these meetings and anything to improve the school should be voluntary. When you start paying yourselves these allowances, that’s when you start running into financial problems.

“For Vaiusu, your new school starts to get old from today. As all children do, they start scribbling on walls tomorrow, destroying desks, chairs and furniture. It will be ideal to set aside a few talas today for school maintenance.”

Partly-funded through a grant of NZ$190,000 by the government of Japan, the Prime Minister also encourages other villages to take advantage of JICA’s school building scheme.

“There is a lot of money sitting there for these sort of projects. I encourage other villages to take advantage of these funds to improve their schools. There are also a lot of funds towards climate change projects – including mangrove protection Vaiusu can take
advantage of – being made available.”

Japan – through JICA – has built over 50 schools in Upolu and Savai’i the last five years.

 

 

 

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