By Devota Mwachang`a
Apparently,
education stakeholders in Tanzania have come in support of the
government’s decision to improve education in the country by
reintroducing corporal punishment.
It is argued that caning, beating and hitting among other forms of corporal punishment will somehow discipline the students and improve their performance.
Former Director of Secondary Education, Philemon Charles, actually commended the government for accepting corporal punishment as the answer to the education crisis, calling that caning be executed often if ‘need be’.
“It’s best to use corporal punishment in schools in order to bring back discipline because school is the only centre for discipline ... when you beat them and they will regret their mistakes,” Charles said.
Other than just beating the children, who already get their share of whipping at home anyway, Tanzania Association of Managers and Owners of Non-Governmental Schools and Colleges (Tamongsco) secretary general Benjamin Nkonya, would have minor adjustments to how corporal punishment is administered.
First he would have the government remember that student discipline depends on good supervision by teachers.
But he too is in favour of caning though he purports some kind of leniency.
“Corporal punishment is not bad but it shouldn’t be used as the first punishment for minor mistakes,” he says.
According to him, sticks, most teachers’ choice weapon to marshal the beatings, can regain and maintain students’ discipline but should it go hand-in-hand with the good supervision.
Taking account that the sticks leave the children bruised, scarred and sometimes bleeding, he admonishes that it is better for a student to know that corporal punishment was the final stage but not the customary punishment for every mistakes.
On the children’s side is the Caucus for Children’s Rights and the child protection relationship officer, Mathias Mkude who solemnly appealed to the government to call-off corporal punishment in public schools.
He explained that beating, slapping and hitting the children does not make them perform better in class and it will surely not solve the crisis because it never caused it in the first place.
“It will neither motivate students’ academic performance nor improve their discipline … it will only add fear and resentment, it will increase dropouts and simply sugar coat the problem as the students will only act like they are disciplined in fear but never really understand the lesson,” he cautioned.
According to researchers, it is corporal punishment that heavily contributes to truancy and a ‘cramming’ system of education where the children only memorise to please the teachers by passing the exams but gain no mastery of the subjects.
“If the canes were useful to students’ academic performance, students from schools which apply sticks as punishment would have done well,” he asserted.
“The government has taken a hasty and angry decision without considering the reason for the students failure, the government should take a look at the students requirements and their learning environments, have they forgotten that the nation has such a dire shortage of teachers that we are importing them?” he queried.
But the pleas of human right groups are falling on deaf ears as Education and Vocational Training deputy minister Philipo Mulugo recently made it clear.
“We know the canes in school will attract a lot of criticisms, especially from human rights activists, but the absence of corporal punishment is the collapse of discipline in schools …,” he had said.
"When the teacher walks in holding that stick, you fear even answering a question because you may be beaten …," said Clara Tomeka, a 16-year-old student.
If that is true for other students in the country then it can be expected that the teachers will not be running very interactive classes.
But on the other hand, what Clara momentarily forgot is that, you answer wrong your beaten, you don’t answer you are also beaten and it appears the government will support that too.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
