The Free State Education MEC will address school principals in the Odendaalsrus district on Monday to address corporal punishment. This follows a crescendo of calls for the education department to train teachers to discipline students without violence after a teacher from Wessel Maree Secondary School in Odendaalsrus was suspended for pushing a student to the floor in a video that went viral on social media. According to spokesman Howard Ndaba, the department planned to address principals and the school governing bodies (SGB) of former Model C schools about issues related to “social cohesion, corporal…
The Free State Education MEC will address school principals in the Odendaalsrus district on Monday to address corporal punishment.
This follows a crescendo of calls for the education department to train teachers to discipline students without violence after a teacher from Wessel Maree Secondary School in Odendaalsrus was suspended for pushing a student to the floor in a video that went viral on social media.
According to spokesman Howard Ndaba, the department planned to appeal to principals and the school governing bodies (SGB) of former Model C schools about issues related to “social cohesion, corporal punishment and all that antisocial behavior.”
However, education expert Prof. Brahm Fisher said the law has been clear over the past 20 years that teachers should not physically discipline students, as there were alternatives that could be used in addition to corporal punishment.
“South Africa has a number of laws that [pupils] of corporal punishment and abuse. Article 12(1) of the Constitution states that everyone has the right to liberty and security,” he said.
“Including the rights: to be free from all forms of violence, not to be tortured, treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading manner.”
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Ndaba added that Section 28(1)(d) protects every child from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation, while Section 10 states that everyone has inherent human dignity and the right to its protection. Fisher said Section 10(1) of the SA Schools Act clearly states that no one in a school may use corporal punishment against a student, and that a person who violates the provision has committed a criminal offence.
“And if convicted, a penalty may be imposed that may be for assault. The 1997 Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act also banned corporal punishment in schools,” Fisher said.
Former teacher and professor at the School of Open Learning at the University of the Free State, Corene de Wet, said teachers were often abused by students to the point where they cracked up and responded to the attacks.
“I’m speaking from the teachers’ perspective, but we all know whatever you do, keep your hands in your pockets,” she said.
“However, we have to understand that the teachers are very intimidated at this stage, they are afraid to do something, so children get away with terrible misbehavior.”
Meanwhile, Ndaba denounced the rumors that the suspended teacher was not qualified and also said they were contradictory because some students at the school asked him to return.
“He is not employed by the department, he was employed by the SGB. He’s a certified teacher,” he says.
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