Teachers from various schools on Thursday said punishment should be given to students and suggested the government form a committee comprising psychologists to decide on the mode of punishment.

This was the consensus among teachers at a seminar on ‘Creating Awareness on Punishment Crisis for Schoolteachers’. Sardar Patel High School Headmistress K Ramani said a section of students feel punishment is required but teachers should not be biased while awarding punishment.

Teachers blamed the media for blowing out of proportion incidents related to punishment.

D Shashikumar, founder of Brain Centre, felt the media was willing to the listen to the teachers’ version, but teachers always avoid them. “Worse, even their colleagues wouldn’t take the initiative to explain the actual reasons. This kind of attitude among teachers has to change,” he said.

“According to a survey, we have found 79.9 per cent of punishments are given by parents, mainly mothers. As a result, a child threw his frustrations or emotional outbursts in the class such as tearing pages and so on. This might irritate the teachers and they would end up beating students,” he said.

He said parents should imbibe good values in the children at an early age.