School Girls Get Equal Chance To Be Caned

The schoolgirls really felt liberated when the headmaster asked the boys to leave the assembly hall. The teenagers listened proudly as the he told them that from now on they would be treated exactly the same as the boys. But the girls of Heaton School, Newcastle, were stunned when he added: "And that means you will also get the cane!"

The girls have never been caned before and today there was growing apprehension behind the scenes. A 16-year-old girl said: "We nearly died when the headmaster said that we will now get the cane. I know it's women's lib year but we think this is taking it too far."

Will she take her punishment like a MAN? "If I'm ever due to get the cane, I will run home." At home her mother said: 'The thought of a bamboo caning really grieves me. I never spank my children. "I do not believe in spanking a child. I'd rather the girls be suspended if they are bad. There are ways and means of punishing them without spanking them."

But headmaster Mr. Henry Askew was adamant that what's good for the boys is good for the girls. He said at the school today: "We simply told the girls that from now on they will be punished the same as the boys." He said that the decision had been taken as the result of pressure from the school's women teaching staff who had had enough of the behaviour of some girls.

Mr. Askew, a juvenile court magistrate, added: "We have resisted caning girls for several year and I hope we do not have to use it on them." Another schoolgirl, aged 15, said that the girls would be at a disadvantage because they are not allowed to wear trousers in warm weather. "The caned will hurt us more," she said.

It is understood that girls will be caned if they are put in detention twice in a week.



Thirty years go by, and the schoolgirls still need caning:

Malaysia Considers Spanking Naughty Girls

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28, 2007 (AFP) - Malaysia is considering allowing schools to cane unruly girls to curb an upsurge in discipline problems including gang fights and bullying, reports said Wednesday.

Currently only boys are caned in Malaysian schools, but only rarely and for serious offences. The punishment is administered on the buttocks or the palm of the hand. Deputy Education Minister Noh Omar said a national education seminar this week had backed the proposal.

"This is because there are more girls in schools and some of them are becoming very problematic. Discipline problems are not confined to boys any more," he told the New Straits Times.

"Discipline problems in schools know no race, religion or rank. If caning for girls is approved, my own daughter will not be spared," he said.

Teachers' union secretary-general Loke Yim Pheng told the newspaper schoolgirls were becoming even more unruly than boys. "Girls with hard-core disciplinary problems should be given the hard approach if the soft approach does not work with them any more," she said.

Teachers at the national seminar recommended that girls be caned only on their palms and calves, and only by female teachers behind closed doors.