BY EDITOR
12th November 2013
It was reliably learnt that the students had skipped classes by assuming that there would be no classes on the particular day that separated two public holidays.
Upon the students’ return to school to resume classes, the school’s administration had met and resolved that the particular students be sent away for two weeks later to return accompanied by their parents or guardians.
That is precisely what happened – the strange twist to the tale for many being that the students were subjected to extra punishment in the form of two strokes of the cane each. The punishment was meted out despite protests from some of the parents and guardians present, all surprised that the school’s authorities believed that the two-week suspension had not served as a stringent enough deterrent measure.
The protests were in part based on the fact that it was only a matter of days before some of the students being “disciplined” sat for their Form Four national examinations, the argument therefore being that subjecting them to such harsh punishment would leave them hopelessly traumatised and disoriented at such a crucial moment in time.
But whatever advice the parents and guardians gave and whatever pleas for mercy or alternative punishment they made fell on deaf ears!
This took education stakeholders back to the days of heated debate on the pros and cons of continuing to subject people to corporal punishment despite vehement calls from all over that it was so anachronistic, draconian and dehumanising that it ought to be repealed.
Records show that meting out such punishment often only serves to make bad situations all the worse. In fact, some national legislatures and rights crusaders across the globe have long questioned the very legality of the punishment.
Corporal punishment is lawful in schools in mainland Tanzania under the National Corporal Punishment Regulations of 1979. This is pursuant to the National Education Act of 1978, under which regulations can be made “to provide for and control the administration of corporal punishment in schools”.
By contrast, legislation relating to the rights of children does not repeal this provision or prohibit corporal punishment in schools.
Arguably the only “improvement” here is that government guidelines in 2000 reduced the number of strokes from six to four and stated that only the heads of schools are allowed to administer the punishment.
In Zanzibar, the Education ministry has adopted a policy against corporal punishment in schools, but the punishment remains lawful under the 1982 Education Act. Meanwhile, the Isles Children’s Act does not explicitly prohibit corporal punishment in schools.
The government could continue arguing that corporal punishment does not apply in the education system while at the same time admitting that caning is administered in schools as “a legitimate and acceptable form of punishment not intended to be violent, abusive or degrading”.
This could be easily dismissed as politicking. As a nation, we need attach more seriousness to discussion on the nuisance that corporal punishment is in our schools and in Tanzanian society generally.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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