Ban on Student Caning? What a Joke

The Ministry of Education finally came out to illegalise the canning of students, apparently consequent upon the beatings in Katikamu and Arua that went sour as was reported in the press. It interesting to note, however, that this is just another of many such directives from the same ministry and that like all the previous, the latest will not work as I will illustrate shortly. Firstly, however, I will critique the incident that alarmed the Ministry of Education to re-illegalise student canning.

Students are Cunning

I did not take the story in which five students were reportedly beaten by three teachers into comma seriously until the Ministry of Education based itself on it to re-state its directive against caning. I took it for granted that everyone readily discerned that it was a tale of a comedy. I have since learnt better, which is why I will draw an analogy between that and a similar story albeit the later ended differently.

For two years, a classmate of mine convinced our teachers that even half the stroke of a cane on him was enough to throw him into comma and teachers who were weak at learning (or remembering) his vulnerability were often sent into panic because he readily collapsed into comma as soon as a rod was tried on him. On one such occasion, he was so badly in comma that as soon as he was admitted at a nearby hospital, Sister Headmistress contacted the father who, on arrival, called the boy — who was on drip — to life. And when they returned to school, the father demonstrated — at an impromptu school assembly — that the boy can be clobbered beyond limits the school had ever considered reaching. This marked the end of the commas even though he succumbed to thorough caning thereafter. What a shame that a whole Ministry of Education believed that three teachers, probably consulting among themselves, flogged students into comma one by one until the fifth!

Caning Popular; Teachers at Crossroads

The Ministry of Education specifies the don’ts without specifying the dos so teachers are at crossroads. For starters, we in the classrooms are mostly dealing with kids and adolescents. They demand more freedom than is reasonably acceptable; would like to disobey authority; and can be incredibly irrational. So what do you do? When you reprimand them, they laugh it off. For many students, suspension from class — to go home or dig up anthills in the school farm — is a God sent break from dreaded lessons. Besides, suspensions mean missed lessons so you are sure to register failures. Ironically, the Ministry turns its eyes away from this reality and bans caning without specifying equally effective alternatives.

Interestingly, many head teachers and parents, including legislators and officers of the Ministry of Education, appreciate Proverbs 13:24. Subsequently, at many staff and parents’ meetings, teachers receive orders to “beat them” from the horse’s mouth. So what do you do when you are at obligation to produce results so as to keep your job? Of course consider that caning ensures compliance whilst saving lesson time and effecting a positive ripple effect — until some students convince journalists that it has thrown them into commas albeit cunningly.

Ill Considered Bandwagon

It is quite apparent that anti-caning advocacy is subsequent upon a wave of child rights activism that is seemingly followed with little consideration for our own context. What it is to be punished, for example, is largely a sociological construct that children acquire as they socialise with seniors starting with their parents. And because many of the parents trust the rod, when children are handed over to teachers, they don’t feel punished until the cane has been administered. That is precisely why I am yet to believe that our students can attain the grades their parents, school authorities and they themselves want to see when we withdraw the threat of the rod. I, however, know graduates who are now glad that their teachers caned them.