The View of Teachers on Child Delinquency in the TRNC Kyrenia Sample

AbstractThe view of teachers, working in secondary education in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, on child delinquency is examined in this study. A questionnaire of 9 questions was applied to teachers working in junior high and high schools in the Kyrenia district. The questionnaire form contains a definition of child, causes of delinquency, ways of preventing it, types of delinquency that educators encounter around themselves and questions on trial and punishment. Some questions could be given more than one answer (for example the three most important ones). Laws have defined the conclusion of childhood in different ways. While the Constitution of the TRNC does not accept any citizen as of full legal age until the completion of 18, the Child Delinquency Act of the TRNC defines a child as someone under the age of 14. According to the first article of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child by the UN, every human being is a child until the age of 18 except the situation of becoming of legal age earlier, based on the law that can be applied to the child. The child is not accepted as a bad or good creature from birth. Being a tool for socializing for the individual, education also carries out an important function in developing the type of relationship and behavioral style. It is a comparatively new consideration taking place in society that children accepted as guilty, should not be judged under the same conditions with adults, should not be sentenced to the same punishments, and should be redound to the community through education. The study was carried out with a quantitative approach and a survey was applied. The study is of importance for observing the opinions of educators towards child delinquency