LEARNERS ARE BEING ASSAULTED AT SCHOOLS

CORPORAL punishment has become a serious issue in schools, especially in rural areas and black disadvantaged schools. Teachers feel the need to use corporal punishment on learners who misbehave and those who do not make their home works. The question is that should corporal punishment be used at schools knowing that it has been burned long time ago.

The department of education’s code of conduct is turning to be blind on issues that lead teachers on spanking learners. The learners nowadays are ill-disciplined and the law favours learners over their educators. If a learner does not do his/her school work which result to failure, the teacher get blamed for not doing his/her job properly. School kids do whatever they feel in school premises that are against the school’s code of conduct, so teachers try to enforce discipline by applying corporal punishment.

The learners quickly jump on accusing teachers, saying they are being abused and they call the officials to take this issue on their hands. Do teachers have the right to corporal punishment? This is the question that everyone is asking around. The Herald has recently reported about a 14-year-old pupil that was badly beaten by his teacher at St Josephs junior secondary schools in Mthatha.  Zandile Mbabela, a journalist from The Herald reported that this young boy received five strong lashes on the left hand with a pipe by a female teacher. Doctors reported that this young boy could not walk again because his condition has become worse to the point of almost total paralysis and the loss of feeling in his legs.

Department of education discovered that some teachers relieve their stress by beating learners. The department of education burned corporal punishment long time ago. The department gave some alternative measures of corporal punishment such as detention and community service, like working in the school garden and other work at school, not spanking a child. The provincial superintendent of the Eastern Cape, Modidima Manya Said, “We are taking a zero-tolerance approach to corporal punishment and any assault on a pupil by a teacher. We cannot keep spending government money defending teachers who act against government policy. If they cannot comply with the rules, they should not be in the government’s employ.”

Corporal punishment makes children fear school, they not even participate in class and their class marks decreases. It also makes dropouts at schools. Children are not motivated to go to school, and as a result there are a lot of street kids starving in rubbish bins because of fearing school.