Corporal punishment should not be re-introduced in public schools

Corporal punishment is the worst recommendation I heard being proposed to prevent students from burning schools. When it existed, it did not prevent students from burning schools. What corporal punishment did was to instill fear and not to change or remedy the situation.

In fact, corporal punishment hardens students and they become used to it.

Yours truly holds that the government should not reintroduce corporal punishment in schools.

One reason corporal punishment was banned in public schools is to prevent teachers from misusing it.

Second, it meant to provide an enabling environment for students and teachers to interact. That is, students would approach teachers more easily without fear.

Despite all this, corporal punishment goes on in many schools against the provisions of the law, especially on child protection and safety.

Discipline is not about getting kids to do what you want them to do. That is what dictators do, and you are not a dictator—you are an educator. Discipline is providing an environment in which positive teaching and positive learning can occur simultaneously. Discipline is not control from the outside; it is order from within. (teachervision.com)

There are alternative methods for teachers to discipline students who err. I hope that the government was aware of these methods when it banned corporal punishment years ago.

Thus, it needs to encourage schools to come up with an alternative discipline policy.

The writer is a political and social commentator. He blogs at Politics Kenya