Most schools, if not all, have now closed for the short holiday.
However, before this, cases of school fires had been reported in various institutions.
The upsurge portends underlying problems that require policy change and a total overhaul of the forms of disciplining errant students.
On the flip side, research studies have shown that schools, which excessively use the cane, have more cases of delinquency, more vandalism, lower-class attendance rates and poor examination results than schools with regulated caning and mild punishment.
In recognition of the grave impact of corporal punishment on students, international and local organisations and governments around the world have embarked on various strategies intended to fight and stop the practice.
The basic strategies adopted have focused on the enforcement of rules and procedures.
This is the case because the approaches do not take into consideration the socially embedded drives to participate in or resist actions.
It is expected that the government’s efforts should address attitudes towards corporal punishment.
Thus, it cannot be gainsaid that the problem has been dealt with when individual teachers refrain from caning students because they are afraid or are threatened with punishment if discovered.
As long as the human element is left out, it will not be long before the mechanism proves futile.
Consequently, there ought to be two broad categories in the fight against corporal punishment, that is, ethical-societal reforms and institutional reforms.
Previous and current initiatives have concentrated more on dealing with institutional reforms than on society’s moral and attitudinal reforms.
In Kenya, corporal punishment was banned in 2000.
Teachers questioned how they were expected to discipline students if the threat or the actual use of the cane as a deterrent factor was banned.
They were told to seek alternative methods of containing the vice that was rampant in schools.
Expulsion of students was also outlawed unless the school boards met and the students are given a chance to defend themselves.
Teachers were instead advised to counsel and guide the errant students to become responsible citizens, of which for the past decade there has been no or less significant steps made only that truancy, misbehaviour and burning of schools took a toll.
Caning students violates their basic rights to respect for their bodily integrity and human dignity, according to the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Students are people too and equal holders of these rights.
However, is corporate punishment beneficial, is it necessary to bring sanity, is it morally correct and is it a corrective measure or a punitive measure?
As we stare at the monster of school arsons and destruction of property many approaches to the control of the students' unrest and unruly behaviour are being advocated and executed.
The theories of deterrence, retribution, prevention, compensation and reformation are considered to be justifications for punishment, and researchers agree with the views that certain forms of punishment are regrettably severe.
This is evident in reports by the human rights watch conducted before the abolition of corporal punishment in Kenyan schools because many students were maimed by teachers and some even died, but the practice could have been regulated and not been abolished.
The writer is a communication expert and comments on topical issues
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
