Cape Town - The South African Democratic
Teachers Union (Sadtu) in the Western Cape has lambasted Education MEC Debbie Schäfer’s boast about the Western Cape showing, at 1.1%, the lowest incidents of corporal punishment in the country.
Sadtu provincial secretary Jonavon Rustin said the union was making a call on all educators to resist from using corporal punishment. “We must have a 0% corporal punishment in the Western Cape.”
Rustin said the union was happy about the decrease in corporal punishment. “We have been advocating in all our meetings that corporal punishment should not be administered in any circumstances”.
This was after Schäfer emphasised on the General Household Survey Statistics SA that the Western Cape had the lowest number of incidents of pupils having experienced
corporal punishment last year, “with the percentage of reported incidents also having decreased when compared with 2009”.
Last year, 1.1% of Western Cape pupils reported to have experienced corporal punishment. Schäfer said corporal punishment was illegal in terms of the SA Schools Act.
“The WCED views incidents of corporal punishment in a serious light, and while the number of cases reported independently to Stats SA remains low, the department takes all allegations brought to its attention seriously. The department conducts full investigations into all cases reported and charges anyone found guilty of practising
corporal punishment.”
Schäfer said the department understood the difficulties posed by some pupils and provided training and support to schools on discipline and positive behaviour programmes.
“There are also a number of programmes in place for district-specific behaviour interventions.
“Districts are providing skills training in alternative and restorative strategies to deal with learner discipline. Schools are encouraged to contact their district office should they be interested in receiving this training,” Schäfer said.
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