Corporal Punishment is defined as a use of physical force causing pains as a means of discipline. It has since been removed from schools in South Africa. In this essay, I will explore the for and against of implementing corporal punishment within education in South Africa. I am in support of not bringing corporal punishment back in South African education.
According to South African Schools Act, 1996 (Act No. 84 of 1996) in Chapter 2 section 10 says that, “no person may administer corporal punishment at a school to a learner”, it also goes to say that “any person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a sentence which can imposed for assault”. In the same breath we know that not even the parent can physically punish the child because it can be seen as abuse. This is a serious matter in South Africa at the moment. The government does not want educators, school staff or any to use corporal punishment because of the Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act, 1997 (Act No. 33 of 1997).
Some academic people see corporal punishment as neither a deterrent nor reformative measure. According to Leach (1993) he states that “corporal punishment is not a deterrent because giving the child a short sharp punishment only leaves the child feeling that the problem is over, but it is never reformative. This has been proven to us that punishment is not the answer to make a problem student change his way. It only makes the student hate and lose interest in the subject.
We can see that according to Short and Blanton (1988) he states that “corporal punishment decreases the learners’ motivation and leads to low academic achievement. Caning, as they argued created anxiety, fear, aggression and frustration which acts as inhibitors to the learning process. Thus caning per say cannot account for good academic performance.” The learner who undergoes corporal punishment will never form a working or good relationship with this educator and this will create a negative working environment. We can take from this reasoning that corporal punishment is not the answer to bring about good grades and behavior.
Students spend so much time with their educators than with anybody else, so students are bound to pick up certain characteristics from the teacher and if the teacher uses corporal punish then there is a chance that the student will also use this abusive way to get his way (Wiehe,1998). Leach, (1993) States that “socialization of children in schools, that integrates corporal punishment, models children to adopt aggressive behavior as displayed by their teachers who are their adult r...
