Corporal punishment going on despite ban

Recently Francis Jjuuko, went to register his child at a school in Masaka District and was welcomed by a faceoff between a bitter mother warning the headteacher not to ‘cane’ her child.

“I have registered my child in an academic school not in an army training school. I, therefore, do not expect her to be tortured or punished in any way that may harm her life,” the parent stressed.

Jjuuko says according to the conversation, the parent told the headteacher that in Third Term, her Primary Five daughter had returned home with bruised buttocks and revealed that the mathematics teacher had given her daughter 20 strokes of the cane.

Teachers have over the years been using physical force with the intention of inflicting pain for the purpose of correcting or checking the learner’s behaviour. But this is a crime as corporal punishments were banned by Ministry of Education and Sports.

Condemned
While speaking in Kampala ahead of World Teachers’ Day celebrations in October last year, the ministry’s permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, reemphasised the need to wholly ban corporal punishment in schools. He said teachers ought to create safe learning environments at all times.

“Any school environment should be free from fear, trauma and anxiety because no child irrespective of gender and background should have the thought of not going to school due to corporal punishments,” Kakooza said.

“We condemn any violence and mental harassment on our children. Punishment is not an answer.”
However, in many schools across the country, learners continue to be subjected to corporal punishments, some sustaining grievous injuries and trauma.

Madina Nakayenge, 23, is one such former student who still nurses the trauma she faced at the hands of her teachers. “Our teacher would tell us to bend and touch our toes and hit us on the back with a bamboo stick. Once, that teacher beat a child and made him temporarily physically impaired. She was admitted in hospital, where she nursed injuries for almost a week,” she recalled.

Pupils describe some methods teachers use to punish them as hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, pinching, choking, use of various objects, painful body postures, among others.

“Sometimes a teacher can tell your classmates to hold you tightly to the desk, saying he wants to beat you without any disturbance,” Allan Matovu, a Primary Six pupil, shares adding that other times a teacher will make a pupil carry heavy bricks in both hands while kneeling.

Why insist?
Gaviria Tamale, a primary school teacher, says at times learners become annoyingly stubborn, pushing the teacher beyond limits. “But this does not happen to teachers alone, even some parents are too aggressive when children annoy them,” Tamale says. He adds that through experience, he has learnt that the corporal punishments disorganise concentration of learners and if the pattern continues, the learner may hate the teacher and the subject.

Similarly, Moses Muwulya, a secondary school teacher, says corporal punishments are a result of the teacher’s weakness to control their temper. “I remember slapping a student, it’s something I regret to date. Whenever I meet this former student, the first thing he tells me is about that slap. We recently became friends on Facebook but our chat started with the slap memory, saying he nearly slapped me back,” Muwulya says.

But Beatrice Namakula, a senior teacher trainer at Ndegeya Core Primary Teachers College, says some teachers take the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ saying too far. “Such teachers subject pupils to corporal punishment thinking they are helping them and do not intend to harm them,” she said.

She adds that many always argue that they use corporal punishments as a last resort. “They think it serves as a powerful deterrent when other methods have failed.”

Effects
Elizabeth Kisakye, a child psychologist and early childhood development expert at ministry of Education, says these punishments affect learners negatively than they are helpful. “They affect learners’ physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. They also cause fear of teachers, feelings of helplessness, humiliation, aggression and destruction at school or in some cases lead to dropping out of school,” Kisakye said.

Besides affecting the child, Josephine Ndagire, the headteacher of Faith Junior School, says punishments also tarnish the teacher’s and the school’s reputation.

Advice to teachers
Elizabeth Kisakye, a child psychologist says:
•The teaching and learning process cannot be effective when children live in fear of those who teach them.
•Reasons for learners’ behaviour problems should be examined in depth to solve cause.
•Some children just need guidance and counselling to change their ways.
•Teachers should accept individual differences in learners and employ tactics of handling them.

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