It is a common enough sight as one drives past Government managed schools in Nigeria, students in uniform wielding the cane and using it on fellow students. There are always about 4 of them, presumably senior ones lending support to each other in their onerous task of maintaining discipline among their peers.  They stand over other kneeling students at the gate of makeshift school entrance while teachers, usually not more than two, conduc t what appears to be an assembly. 

Visits to the schools will show that although there are more than twenty staff on roll, only two manage to turn up on time and need the support of students to manage the school. Appointing prefects as extra eyes for the authority is common enough in schools, however the practice that allows students to use the cane on each other must be peculiar to Nigeria in a world that increasingly frowns on acts of violence against children. Sadly, no one seems to be asking questions about why corporal punishment has devolved to students in its administration and why it should be so freely used even for minor offences like late coming. 

When I was in school there were numerous and protracted debates on the appropriateness of caning in schools and students themselves were required to research and convince the authorities that it should not be adopted as a form of punishment since there was no earthly proof that it aids learning or serves as a deterrent for bad behaviour.  A compromise was reached eventually and government trotted out regulations to all its schools that caning should be applied only for very serious infractions, only with the approval of principals, that a record of the incidence should be kept and a report written to parents to notify them that their child had been caned.  This rule must now be buried in the annals of history, deep enough that schools have become ignorant of it and support students to subject fellow students  indiscriminately to abuse in the name of punishment for breaking vaguely defined school rules and regulations.

Many parents support the use of the cane, to remove the madness from the head of that child and perhaps keep them on the straight and narrow. Being a very religious society, we often use our religious books to justify physical violence against our children. At a meeting organised to meet new parents in a school recently, the topic was put on the agenda because the principal had been bombarded by requests from parents to cane their children. The Principal explained that the school did not subscribe to any form of hitting and they wanted parents to know this.  A central principle of the school is to explore all avenues to instil discipline and if the cane were ever to be used, it would be a final resort and the permission of the parents would be sought. The school is overtly religious in orientation and several parents, all men in this case, seized on this aspect to challenge the principal. One of them expressed his disgust at what he termed the touchy feely approach to discipline in school for young boys and vehemently reiterated that the boys should be flogged. “Flog them, flog them” he yelled, banging on the table and making me cringe in my seat as I thought of my poor little boy recently enrolled in the school. This child of mine upon sighting a cane would begin a litany, reminding you that he is only a small boy and your child, that we are all God’s children and that God forgives. “Oh, mutti, mutti please, please I won’t never do that again, oooh mutti forgive me”.  Through all of this, my young lad would be crying buckets and producing copious amounts of snort and sweat.

As I sat there listening to dads trying to convince the school authorities to routinely use the cane on their children and not wait for permission, I remembered all those other children that passed through my classroom, who never once had to be flogged by me, yet recorded no truancy and were orderly and obedient in class. I thought of my other son who has no fear of the cane and has often boasted that before he does something wrong he works out the penalty in the number of blows he would suffer either at my hands or at his father’s.  Threat of the cane has never deterred that one from doing whatever he decides to do; his attitude forced us as parents to explore other avenues for instilling discipline and punishment for wrongdoing or unacceptable behaviour. Although many of us subscribe to corporal punishment when we consider it necessary, I doubt that we would be as compliant if we knew that it would be administered by other children.

It is tough raising children, especially adolescents and the cane might help make easier work of it as we control the children by sheer fear of physical hurt. I sometimes agree that the cane has its place and have argued many times for its use, especially on indolent children and even adults. However, use of the cane can botch the job of raising good children and this happens more times than we care to admit although the evidence is all around for us to see.

Many adults definitely and very often cross the thin line between caning for correction and abuse. It is easy to do when the child infuriates you so much that all you want to do is any damage possible to create a lasting impression and enough fear of you so that the child will never again pit its will against yours.  Children have been maimed and even killed as a result of the uncontrolled anger that drives many adults into frenziedly battering young people in the erroneous belief that they are meting out just punishment. Unfortunately, attendant psychological damage can never be measured and children have grown into dysfunctional, sociopathic adults who now populate our communities seeking to subjugate other citizens with the use of sheer violence. They never learnt to behave differently.

If adults are scarcely able to remain temperate when dispensing corporal punishment it could perhaps be said to be foolhardy to hand this vitally important matter to students, to be used at their discretion. Adolescents are notoriously burdened with raging hormones and are seldom in control of their own emotions. Their judgement is almost always emotive and impaired to that extent. How is a sixteen year old expected to be able to tell when a good scolding is enough for an offence or when more heavy throttling is needed. If the school, through its teachers, has been able to prescribe the exact number of strokes for each offence, could they also have provided guidelines for when students may be exempt from punishment and guidelines for ensuring students to whom use of the cane has been delegated will perpetrate no partiality.

If we choose to be guided only by regulations issued by government those many years ago on the application of corporal punishment, which have not yet been repealed, delegating students to apply corporal punishment is not appropriate. Setting aside that young people learn that violence against each other is  acceptable, a lesson that stays with them for life and which is detrimental to peaceful and harmonious coexistence in society, school principals should be made to explain why they have chosen to delegate a key function of their office to students.  This is only one function among several others that has been abdicated. Others include leading school assembly, teaching at least four lesson periods a week, performance management of teachers assigned to the school, ensuring the safety and well-being of students in their charge and facilitating consultations with parents and with the school community to ensure that the school continues to be fit for purpose.

 Government schools are of course no longer fit for purpose and besides being training grounds for hooligans and societal misfits, they achieve little else that is worthy of mention. However going back to the issue of corporal punishment, I believe that students, instead of being equipped to cane each other, should be empowered to hold teachers to account when they fail to deliver on their responsibilities or flout guidelines for relating to young people in their care. The mechanism for doing this will no doubt pose a challenge, but the time has come for us to effectively harness the rearing of our children. Having failed to inspire children’s interest in education and faced with the repercussions of the rape and exploitation of innocent minds, teachers are abandoning schools to the control of children taught to employ violent means. This does not bode well for development.

The countries that clawed their way out of third world status at no time compromised their children’s education. This is what we do when we let those responsible for providing education to our children hand over their paid functions to the children themselves. It is no longer news that students are made to supervise classes, always with a cane in hand.  They are also made to write copious notes on the chalkboard for their classmates to copy without the benefit of an explanation. Of course, discipline in the school has been given up entirely to these children and they have instituted their own social order  that is denigrated as gangs by school authorities. All principals, teachers and their counterparts in the ministries seem intent on doing is to justify their inaction and non-performance by blaming dysfunctional homes and bad upbringing for the poor state of affairs.

The tragedy is that we are letting them get away with it. For us who have chosen private education we will pay twice for our apathy, first by way of fees in over priced schools and second when we and our children are forced to live cheek by jowl with the products of government schools who have no appreciation for the culture we paid so dearly to be instilled in our children. These products of government schools will dilute the quality of our lives and many will have no qualms about employing violence to intimidate us and divest us of our valuables.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Many adults definitely and very often cross the thin line bet...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 12.03.2008 17:10

NWANZA  Villager

# 2 =Robot;4294995468>Many adults definitely and very often cross the thin line bet...Read the full article. Nigeria as a country has to make laws to stop all forms of corporal punishment in our schools and even our home. It is primitive to always use force and intimidation to convey our displeasures. This violence should be nipped in the bud as soon as possible, to curtail our penchant to the use of force in the larger society. Evidence of this abnormally can be seen in all faucets of our society with violence to children and women increasing over the years. It is therefore time to pass a law that will make it a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the degree of physical damage inflicted on a person. It is even worse to hear that students use Cain on fellow students. Use of force and intimidation to gain control is what brooding ground to higher forms of treachery and violence, as can be witnessed in our Political system as well as other institutions that are supposed to teach leadership. Posted by NWANZA| 13.03.2008 15:17

ayoka1  Villager

# 3 Nigeria as a country has to make laws to stop all forms of corporal punishment in our schools and even our home. It is primitive to always use force and intimidation to convey our displeasures. This violence should be nipped in the bud as soon as possible, to curtail our penchant to the use of force in the larger society. Evidence of this abnormally can be seen in all faucets of our society with violence to children and women increasing over the years. It is therefore time to pass a law that will make it a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the degree of physical damage inflicted on a person. It is even worse to hear that students use Cain on fellow students. Use of force and intimidation to gain control is what brooding ground to higher forms of treachery and violence, as can be witnessed in our Political system as well as other institutions that are supposed to teach leadership. Well said Nwanzi. When I was in boarding school, I knew a couple of junior girls who gave it as good as they got it including me. I took a lot of crap from seniors at first, but when I realized that most times there was no logical reason for the truancy of seniors (it appeared they were just punishment happy and handed out punishments on a whim), I started standing up for myself. Realized that if a senior told me to kneel down and I refused long enough they would give up. If they had escalated the situation past this point, I would have probabley got my revenge my sticking scorpions in their bed or something. Let's stop the oppression before those little, cane wielding brats become big, corrupt, embezzling dictators and politicians! Posted by ayoka1| 13.03.2008 20:26

10Kobo  Villager

# 4 I guess we should distinguish between "child abuse" and "child correction" vis-a-vis the use of a cane. Correction is aimed and modifying a child's behavior, using the cane to achieve such purpose, is not always required and MUST be a last option but all the same, its an option that is open and should remain open. Lets not get too sentimental about it. My Mum (she was a teacher from day one till she retired after 36years in service!) was the one who applies the cane and today, when l reflect on certain things l had done and she wielded the stick, l thank god that she wasn't one of those parents that would shirk their responsibility and later cry foul. I benefited from her cane BUT not all children need to be caned. Canning should not be the norm and if you have to use it, ENSURE that you explain to the child FIRST, why the cane is the only option left. I remember the first day my son took money from my purse, without my permission (its a long story but l will summarize). He enrolled in a new school and made new friends who influenced his behavior negatively. I verbally scolded him seriously and let him know that all he needed to do was ask and if l think its right, l will give him. He promised not to do so again. I later discovered that he repeated the offense again and even lied when l confronted him. I showed him the remaining left-over change (went through his school bag). That day, l was so mad and so angry that in his presence, l busted into tears (never cried in the last 25 years that l can remember, except when l lost my dear Mum), the sorrow was so deep because he was my eldest son and l respect him so much. After relieving myself of my pain and anger (the tears did that for me) l took him into my room, sat him down and "thrashed him with words". I told him l love him but l was going to cane him because he has failed to abide by our initial agreement: that he would not ever take anything thats not his. I took pains to explain to him that the "pain of the cane" was to be a reminder to him. With love and care, l caned him, he cried and l cried also. Afterwards, l cuddled him on my laps and we discussed the whole event then, he asked me why l was crying when l was not the one being caned and l told him that "it saddens me" and pains me, to see him suffer pain. I made him understand that l do not derive any pleasure from canning him, l just wanted him to be MY SON, someone to make me proud. Till today, years after, my son has grown up to be somebody am so proud of, his wisdom and sense of value is far beyond his age. The best in his class, a medic to be in future, very caring, intuitive and each time l read the letter l made him write (still stuck on my wall till today: l promise Daddy and Mummy to be a good boy; and he signed it with his name!) back then, after his canning, l just smile. If he annoys me, l just call him and make him read "his promise", he will apologize and am sure that issue will no come up, for a long time but you know, we are all humans and imperfect :wink: As long as you love your child and want the best for him, as long as you understand that canning must never be done when you're angry, that the child must understand why such extreme step needs to be taken, that canning is for correction and not for punishment and that you are dealing with a child and not one "incurable adult criminal" and you pray for, and along with your child, the issue of child abuse should not arise. You cannot and should not abuse that which you love. Its better if you can avoid the cane and still get the same result. Children are different, even when of the same parents, situations differ. A "child" is not mature enough to correct by canning, another child. In all, never loose your self-control; Anger is madness, dont ever correct a child in anger. As problematic as the Nigerian society is, despite all the avoidable stress, our children still respect and honor their parents much more than the western society we try to emulate. What do you think? 10Kobo stuff. Posted by 10Kobo| 13.03.2008 21:44

akuluouno  Villager

# 5 My Dear Mutti, You have written well. Corporal punishment is one issue that education managers in Nigeria have to tackle with the urgency it deserves. And to capture students dishing it out to fellow students in camera is the lowest point of it all. No wonder Nigeria is hesistant to pass the bill on the Rights of the Child in spite of the inherent benefits therein for the Nigerian child.:evil::evil::evil: I pity the leaders of our tomorrow:cry::cry: Posted by akuluouno| 14.03.2008 11:42

NWANZA  Villager

# 6 =10Kobo;4294995794>I guess we should distinguish between "child abuse" and "child correction" vis-a-vis the use of a cane. Correction is aimed and modifying a child's behavior, using the cane to achieve such purpose, is not always required and MUST be a last option but all the same, its an option that is open and should remain open. It is beautiful how you handled/solved your Son's juvenile delinquency at home, and will recommend it to all parents with school age children. However, the subject is about child abuse in our schools disguised as disciplinary actions being mated out by principals, teachers, and prefects. Our boarding schools have become a training ground for all sorts of criminal violent behaviors. Why should children be allowed to use Cain on other children? Why should children be whipped for being a tad late to school? Why should children be made to kneel down for hours? Why do we use these ineffective and primordial means of correction? If you read Nigerian newspapers, you will attest to how the vicious cycle of violence sticks out. THE ARMED ROBBERS, RITUAL KILLINGS, CHILD MOLESTERS, STREET HAWKER, AREA BOYS, BUS DRIVERS/GUARDS, KIDNAPPERS, POLITICAL THUGS. Violence has become the number one option instead of the last resort. Posted by NWANZA| 14.03.2008 12:26

10Kobo  Villager

# 7 Nwanza, a few response. Why should children be allowed to use Cain on other children? Answer: Never, they are not matured enough to draw the line between "abuse and correction". The blind cannot lead another blind. Some Teachers are not even 'maturely-qualified' to even do so! Maturity of the mind and soul is what is implied here, not of age. Why should children be whipped for being a tad late to school? Answer: Never; it is not necessary, there are other ways of motivating children to come early to school. The parents are actually the culprit here and should be held responsible for such lateness. You ensure they sleep on time and wake-up with enough time for bath, dress-up and breakfast and off to school they go. Why should children be made to kneel down for hours? Answer: Never; this qualifies as an "Abuse". It cannot achieve any desired objective and its just plain ignorance and wickedness. You solve a problem by looking at the cause. In my son's example above, l actually realized that his delinquency was due to bad association, l ensured he does not hob-nob with those boys and l also informed the parents of the boys so they can also do the 'needful' concerning their own ward. I also informed their Teacher in class so she can also keep an eye on all of them. Why do we use these ineffective and primordial means of correction? Answer: if the "use of cane" is what you refer to as 'primordial', l will respectfully opine that you are wrong. Being as old as the Religious books does not take away from its effectiveness. The Christian Ten commandments, despite being ancient, if religiously followed, is enough to cater for all human tribulations we face today but l guess its not the "rules" that are the problem, its how we "interpret and apply" them, that present challenges. The generalization that 'canning is bad or evil or is an abuse' is what l totally disagree with. Whether we like it or not, the precepts in all religious books, be it Christian, Islamic, Buddhism, e.t.c are written from inspiration. For the one l am familiar with, the Bible says "Teach your Child, (early in life) and he would give you rest (later in life) italics mine. Further to sayings are "Spare the rod, and spoil the child". 'Sparing the rod' is not akin to 'abusing the child' and is never intended as an excuse to maltreat a defenseless and vulnerable little creature, even if it came to the world through you. It goes further to say "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4) Am no preacher but l think if all Parents adhere to this simple principle, the issue of child abuse or wife abuse for that matter, may not arise at all. Cheers & Thanks. 10Kobo Posted by 10Kobo| 14.03.2008 18:28