Prevalence of Physical Abuse at Primary School Level in District Faisalabad

Abstract

Physical abuse in schools is quite visible in developing countries like Pakistan; it is being covered by maintaining discipline in schools which instigated to conduct this study as a dire need of the time to cope with physical abuse at the primary school level. A multi-stage sampling technique was used. Two hundred and forty-five teachers and 23 head teachers and 500 students were selected from the Primary Section of Higher Secondary Schools of two tehsils (City & Sadar) of District Faisalabad. A Likert type scale for teachers and headteachers and a dichotomous questionnaire for students were used as research instruments. Mean, Standard Deviation, ANOVA, ttest, frequency, Mann-Whitney u test were applied to analyze data. Teachers and headteachers’ perceptions indicated that physical abuse exists moderately whereas students’ responses explored the presence of a high level of physical abuse by the teachers in the schools.