Caning won't end school fires and Magoha should know better

Trying to legalise violence in schools can only lead to more disasters. [Mose Sammy, Standard]

For all his administrative experience, hands-on management, and tough-love diplomacy, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha draws more attention because of his propensity for awkward gaffes.

From publicly dressing down education officials and dismissing critics of the Competency-Based Curriculum offhand to bungling the schools reopening plans after the long Covid-19 closure, Prof Magoha always seems on the verge of self-destruction but he soon gets back on his feet probably due to his magisterial mien.

His latest blunder, suggesting that corporal punishment should be re-introduced in schools as a way to curb school fires by instilling fear in learners though uttered out of sheer frustration with the spiraling wave of unrest in schools, came across as an inadvertent remark from an exasperated teacher on the verge of retirement rather than a professor who has had a 10-year stint at the helm of the country’s oldest and most prestigious higher learning institution - the University of Nairobi.

Corporal punishment - the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain so as to correct their misbehaviour - was banned in Kenya in 2001 as a way of enforcing global human rights standards as well as recognising and protecting the rights of children.

Before 2001, it was the standard form of punishment in both public and primary schools. While no studies have shown that it led to increased discipline and order in the institutions, what is not in doubt is that it led to more school drop-outs and resulted in serious injuries, extreme fear, and even death among learners.

Because it was carried out haphazardly, sometimes for infractions such as lateness, failure to complete homework, having a torn shirt or blouse, dozing during a lesson, or making noise in class, it reduced schools to torture chambers, made learning a punishment, and reduced learners to hapless zombies craving to be understood and loved.

Teachers freely used all sorts of weapons such as sticks, pipes, shoes, straps, and pieces of wood to inflict pain on the learners. If the school is where the cane ruled daily, the home is where it reigned supreme.

Yet, few studies have shown a positive correlation between discipline and corporal punishment or that it promotes learning. Most have shown that physical punishment does more harm than good in the words of Ellen Key, a Swedish feminist and education writer who said: Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective. Neither shame nor physical pain has any other effect than a hardening one.”

If the modern-day learner is more culturally attuned to the world through the Internet, trying to legalise violence in schools can only lead to disasters much bigger than school fires.

While caning strikes fear and terror in the hearts of timid and reserved learners, it hardens the bigger and more aggressive ones who may be inclined either to fight back or drop out of school in protest. It may also cause serious injuries, concussions, or even death. It is also emotionally humiliating and can cause serious mental or behavioral problems among learners.

Few studies have shown a positive correlation between discipline and corporal punishment or that it promotes learning. [Courtesy]

In class, learners would tend to avoid or hate the more aggressive teachers to the detriment of their progress in school. Rather than create a spirit of camaraderie or partnership between learners and the teachers, caning fosters animosity and hostility no matter how subtle it may be.

On other hand, proponents of corporal punishment say it serves as a deterrent for bad behaviour and learners tend to behave well to avoid the cane. It is also said to make obstinate learners submit to authority and respect the teachers. These arguments though tend to be simplistic and ultra-conservative because they fail to appreciate the longer-term psychological and emotional problems caning could spawn.

Prof Magoha should know much better than to suggest he could reintroduce corporal punishment by fiat. As the initiator of policy in Kenya’s education sector, Prof Magoha would have to have the Children’s Act, which prohibits it, amended, subjected to public debate, and then debated in Parliament.

Even if it passed muster in Parliament, Kenya is a signatory to all conventions on human and children’s rights, making his efforts dead in the water.

The number of schools that have suffered school fires is slightly more than 100, a fraction of the more than 30,000 basic education institutions in Kenya. A majority of school heads have managed to forestall such incidents through alternative and more effective ways of creating and maintaining order in schools. Is Prof Magoha trying to kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer?

His proposal could be laughable if it was not so misguided, out of tune with modern-day schooling trends, or coming from a man with such an impressive scholarly and managerial CV.

Such a parochial suggestion from a man who should be the chief protector of learners’ rights should, at the very least, force a reprimand from his boss or have him kicked out of office in disgrace.

The writer is a consulting editor. [email protected]