Uganda: define alternative school punishment

The ban on corporal punishment and caning in Ugandan schools is timely. The Ministry of Education is right in observing that the indiscriminate use of the cane has eroded the traditional values derived from the use of the cane and that corporal punishment undermines the health and dignity of children.

Apart from the physical injuries that might result from indiscriminate caning of children, the psychological damage goes un-quantified and its effect on child development and society might have been underestimated. Sigmund Freud's analytical theory of displacement of ego defence mechanism lends credence to the fact that there is a link between caning and bullying in schools. Children who are exposed to violence learn violence and transfer it to others. The child who has been humiliated or injured can't hit back at the offending adult teacher and so shifts his anger to a weaker colleague.

However since this is not the first time that the Ministry of Education has attempted to ban corporal punishment in schools, there is need for detailed comparative studies to define alternative punishment. Since the ban of corporal punishment by the British parliament in state schools in 1987 (by a majority of just one vote) there have been numerous calls to reinstate the cane.

Weary of disruptive pupils misbehaving in classrooms, and disillusioned by the alternative punishment of excluding notorious children from school with its consequential effect of creating school dropouts and juvenile delinquents, opinion polls show that the general British public including some school children are in favour of reintroducing caning.

To avert such a trend in Uganda the ministry, teacher training colleges and schools will have to work hand in hand to define alternative punishment methods instead of leaving it to the individual teacher's ingenuity. Parents will more than before have to take responsibility and participate in disciplining their children so that the children learn to respect authority right from home.

Editorial
14 August 2006

 
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