Johannesburg - It’s been 18 years since the use of corporal punishment was banned in schools, but the practice is still prevalent – in fact studies show that it’s on the rise.
And if the sentiments that surfaced at a summit on school discipline in Boksburg last week are anything to go by, those whom the ban sought to protect – the pupils – and many of their teachers want corporal punishment to be reinstated.
The belief is that corporal punishment was a method used to discipline and/or punish pupils and its abolition has left teachers with little or no means to deal with discipline effectively.
Basic Education Deputy Minister Enver Surty said that since the banning of corporal punishment, teachers had lost the “will or whip” to deal with discipline in schools.
He said that when it was still allowed, the mere threat of corporal punishment was enough to deter ill discipline, but now teachers were at their wits’ end.
“It’s hard to teach in certain areas and teachers are required to do things beyond their duties to teach,” he said.
Speaking on the findings of a study on school violence conducted in 2012, Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention executive director Patrick Burton confirmed that corporal punishment was common.
In the 2008 leg of the study, 47.5 percent of pupils said they had been physically hit at school. In the 2012 leg, when almost 6 000 pupils, 121 principals and more than 230 teachers wee interviewed, 49.8 percent of the pupils said they have been either “caned or spanked” by a teacher or principal.
National Association of Parents in School Governance secretary-general Mzimkhulu Hlalukana agreed that corporal punishment was common in schools and that it often had a negative effect on the pupils’ academic and psychological development.
“In most cases, corporal punishment is carried out in a cruel manner that doesn’t correct anything. Children are used to it and it doesn’t faze them anymore. Others respond negatively and they retaliate,” Hlalukana said.
He said that in cases where teacher hit their pupils daily, which often happens, pupils were fearful and could not fully focus on their studies.
“It stunts their growth severely and diminishes the quality of education. There’s no cognitive development; instead, it’s only their coping skills that develop. They’re preoccupied with ‘how do I cope? How do I survive, so this person doesn’t hit me?’”
“As a teacher and a parent, I think it’s wrong… it adds no value. Social input influences how children behave… (A lack of discipline) is not as a result of the (banning) of corporal punishment. The problem is that we go on about children’s rights without teaching them the responsibility that goes with those rights,” he said.
Also on the rise, Burton said, were cases of sexual assault. The rate at which pupils were sexually assaulted at schools was higher than those at the pupils’ homes.
He said that even though cases of sexual assault remained significantly higher among school girls, more male pupils were falling victim to it.
He said most of the violent incidents happened in the classroom and not in the toilet areas as often thought.
Burton said levels of violence varied significantly from province to province.
Free State had the highest number (30 percent) of pupils who said they had fallen victim to some form of violence at school in the past year.
The Western Cape came in second (29 percent). Provinces with the lowest levels were the Eastern Cape (18 percent) and Gauteng (13 percent). - The Star