As many as three-quarters of school pupils in KZN experience corporal punishment at school, despite it being abolished in 1996.
|||Durban - As many as three-quarters of school pupils in KwaZulu-Natal are experiencing corporal punishment at school, despite it being abolished in South Africa in 1996.
And increasing human rights bodies’ concerns are the extent of the violence being experienced. According to findings of the 2012 National School Violence Study, the second such study done since 2008, KZN has the highest rate of corporal punishment reported in schools, increasing from 48.7 percent in 2008 to 73.7 percent last year.
Because of the increase in cases of corporal punishment reported to the South African Human Rights Commission, the organisation called a meeting last week with stakeholders, including the South African Democratic Teachers Union, The National Alliance of School Governing Bodies, the South African Council of Educators, the Department of Basic Education, Unicef South Africa and the Centre for Child Law, among others.
In a statement issued by the commission it was revealed that cases reported often went beyond the definition of corporal punishment with some children left severely humiliated, grievously injured, disabled or even dead as a result of injuries. It is currently studying why corporal punishment is being used in schools so as to form a strategy to end the practice.
According to the commission: “This meeting was convened so that different perspectives and different facets of the issue could be explored. It was an extremely useful interaction. Importantly, factors that predominated the discussion are that all stakeholders share the fundamental belief that educators should follow the dictates of the law, and that it is important to work together in order to make this a reality in schools.”
Professor Ann Skelton of the Centre for Child Law said it was a good meeting with the correct role players present, but it revealed a serious problem in schools.
“There are a variety of forms of corporal punishment from caning to slapping and even punching children, and not always teenagers. In a lot of cases the children are small. It’s complete assault.”
Skelton said the centre had begun researching the prevalence of cases in schools as well as what happened legally.
“What’s alarming is that there is no central database of information, there’s no easy way to get these statistics.”
She said they did not want to merely swop corporal punishment for another type of harmful punishment, but rather change teachers’ mindset and show them how to manage a classroom effectively.
Allen Thompson, deputy president of the National Teachers Union, said it was agreed that alternative methods of punishment need to be discussed.
“Most teachers are not aware of other methods of discipline and they need to be trained. The department and Natu will organise workshops in different areas teaching other measures for restraining ill-discipline in schools.”
Thompson said often in schools where corporal punishment was administered, it was found that parents also resorted to physically disciplining their children and this needed to change.
Responding to the findings by the National School Violence Study, Basic Education MEC, Senzo Mchunu said the KZN Department of Basic Education was aware of the problem and blamed “lazy” teachers for resorting to corporal punishment.
“We do take this matter seriously but there are still teachers hitting children.”
Mchunu said alternative forms of punishment that were not against the South African Schools’ Act were effective.
“All we can do is educate parents and children about this and charge people who use corporal punishment.”
The chairman of the National Association for School Governing Bodies, Reginald Chiliza, said those resorting to violence for punishment had no conscience.
“What they are doing is breaking the law. It’s high time the Department of Basic Education takes stock of this and the perpetrators are severely punished,” he said.
lauren.anthony@inl.co.za
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