School-based interventions to reduce teacher violence against children: a systematic review

Whilst teacher violence against children at school is a significant global issue, it remains a form of child abuse that is rarely explored. The aim of this study was to systematically review the global literature on the effectiveness of school-based interventions to reduce teacher violence against children. MEDLINE, Embase, ASSIA, CINAHL Complete, ERIC and clinical databases were searched from inception to 21 April 2022. Four cluster randomised controlled trials were retrieved from Uganda, Tanzania and Jamaica. The number of schools per study (cluster size) varied from 8 to 42 schools with between 55 and 591 teachers and 220-4789 students. The average student age was between 7 and 15 years old and, on average, the teachers were between 30 and 42 years old. The interventions aimed to reduce teacher violence against children and incorporated teacher training workshops that targeted teacher-student relationships by promoting positive discipline techniques and nurturing learning environments. The use of teacher violence was significantly reduced among intervention groups. This suggests that these interventions may effectively decrease teacher violence against children and therefore should be advocated more widely.