Boy, 13, asks: Why can’t pupils stand up to their abusive teachers?

Fahmi is 13 years old. Until last year he had never been flogged, never seen a child being flogged. But all that changed when he moved to a Kenyan school from Australia.

Within days he saw numerous children being caned. And then his day came. Baptism by fire.

Now caning is, in his words, “like the norm” at the private school he attends in Machakos County.

To tell his story exhaustively, we have chosen not to reveal his identity because, one, he is a minor; and, two, his father fears this could give bad publicity to the school, which is not their intended purpose.

We will, however, publish, alongside this piece, the SOS letter Fahmi sent us, and which prompted this article. More information about the boy is held in confidence, but is available to the authorities should they require it.

“I had read stories about caning of children but I had never in my wildest imagination thought it would actually happen to me,” says the American-born Fahmi, who moved to Kenya from Australia, where half his family had eventually moved to, in September 2013 to be with his father, a local businessman.

Walked away

So stunned was he the first time a teacher tried to cane him last year that when the teacher refused to reason with him he just walked away and headed home.

The following morning he walked into the staff room armed with the section of the Constitution prohibiting teachers from using corporal punishment against their pupils and students, and insisted he was not going to allow the teacher to commit an unlawful act against him.

“This teacher had tried to cane me the previous day after a playmate reported to him that I had been rude to her. Well, I refused, and took off. At home, I went to my dad’s laptop and searched and printed the article and took it to school the following day for the teacher,” he says.

The Kenyan government banned corporal punishment in Kenyan schools in 2001 and enacted the Children’s Act (Government of Kenya, 2001) which entitles children to protection from all forms of abuse and violence.

Corporal punishment in schools is, therefore, illegal in Kenya.

The Education Bill (2012) states in Article 35 that “no pupil shall be subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in any manner whether physical or psychological”, and that a person who contravenes these provisions “commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding Sh100,000 or to imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both”.

Five lashes

Well, to prove he was not one to be deterred by the piece of law printed by his stubborn pupil, the agitated teacher got his cane and went on to give Fahmi five lashes on the palms.

“‘What if I can pay the Sh100,000?’ he grunted at me after skimming through the print-out,” says a dismayed Fahmi. But that, he says, had not been as painful as the day the entire class was lashed with the edge of a geometric ruler on the upper side of the palm.

What he wonders, and what he keeps echoing during my time with him, is why pupils won’t stand up to their “abusive teachers”.

“I have learnt that defending yourself works with some teachers,” he says.

“Others don’t care to reason with you, they will categorically dismiss your arguments and beat you anyway. And it is the younger kids I feel the most for because they can’t stand up for themselves. Why the older ones won’t say no to this abuse defies my understanding. Sometimes I wonder if they even know that it is against the law.”

He has tried talking to them about not accepting the illegal beatings, even encouraged classmates to stand up to the tyranny of caning teachers by reminding them it is an illegal act, he says.

“I get very frustrated when they are summoned for a beating and they take it unquestioningly as if it is the proper thing to do. At least try! Because I am aware of my rights and I know what the law says, most times I evade such beatings. We must all refuse to be treated as if the law does not protect us.”

Besides, he says, the teaching staff is hypocritical for teaching, in Social Studies, that caning of children is illegal but carrying on with the trend.

“So aren’t they criminals, at least according to what the syllabus says?” he poses.

“The caning so routine that my six-year-old brother keeps having nightmares that he is being thrashed by a teacher. He narrates to us his horror dreams in the morning and we just have a ball laughing at him. But it is not funny. The actual act is not something to laugh about… and the fact that a child is having such dreams is tormenting,” says the Standard Seven pupil.

“Lately, Mum has discovered that he (younger brother) has been wearing all his pairs of shorts to school because he expects to be caned every day. It is common practice for teachers to walk around swinging their canes in their hands — I think to instill ‘fear of the Lord’ in us.

“This kind of punishment is traumatising and instills disabling fear among pupils. I think these teachers get a kick out of beating us.”

Well, all this may be new to Fahmi and his younger brother and it may take him a while to adjust to, but for most Kenyan children, corporal punishment is a regular part of the school experience.

Caning, slapping, and whipping to maintain classroom discipline and to punish children for unsatisfactory academic performance are all methods which, even though banned 14 years ago, are deeply embedded in the Kenyan school culture.

Such abuse goes unnoticed, only coming to light when extreme cases of “punishment” come to the notice of parents and formal complaints are filed. That teachers and the system are yet to invent other modes of punishment for mischievous pupils, more than 10 years since the practice was banned, escapes Fahmi.

Counselling

“At my former school, if you were caught in the wrong you were enrolled for a guidance and counselling session where you discussed and reflected on whatever wrong you had committed and undertook not to repeat it. If you repeated it then you were punished in several other ways, but never beaten.”

In his opinion, local schools should pick tips from those in the West, where punishment involves things like withdrawal of certain pleasures and privileges for offenders.

“For instance, not doing homework means no break time for that pupil. And, trust me, it feels really bad when you are made to use up that time finishing the work while your peers are out having fun. For most children, that sucks enough for them not to want to be caught on the wrong side of the school rules. If what you have done is severe then excursions are stricken off your school calendar.

“I feel Kenyan teachers are bringing up children in a manner that is rather oppressive, where they cannot object to things even when they can see they are wrong. Because if a school cannot teach children to stand up for themselves, and to fight oppression, what’s the point of teaching them math?”

“Personally, I don’t feel like they are disciplining me. I don’t feel that caning me even after I have done something wrong is something that will teach me a lesson. It’s rather oppressing us.”

Mercy Okoth, a mother of four, agrees with Fahmi. It is not that there are no other forms of punishment, she reckons, but just that there is a lack of awareness and some kind of campaign needs to go out to wipe out this culture which has been carried on through generations. She suggests the good old school chores as a punishment.

Limits ability

This oppressive behaviour limits children’s ability to imagine and create things because they fear that if they make a mistake “they will be setting themselves up for a beating”, says Ms Okoth.

But, even though it is already illegal, opinion is split on corporal punishment. Unlike Ms Okoth, many Kenyans believe firmly in the validity of the Biblical “spare the rod and spoil the child”.

And that’s where the problem lies, she says.

Jackson Mwema, another parent, says “the cane is the only thing the African child understands”, and that “unless you use it they will never be corrected”.

Mwema belongs to the same school of thought as Mumias East MP Benjamin Washiali, who recently vowed to push for the re-introduction of corporal punishment in schools so as to address rising cases of indiscipline.

According to the MP, some of the laws passed in Parliament do not address Kenya’s social challenges. Citing the abolishment of caning in schools, the legislator argues that caning is the best way for teachers to punish “wayward” pupils and students.

“My worry is that more students drop out of school due to drugs, alcohol or early pregnancies these days compared to two decades ago,” he said recently during an alumni party for Maraba Primary School.

“Even the lobby groups that advocated for the removal of corporal punishment must have realised their mistake by now.

“The way things are today, it is difficult for teachers to play an important role in shaping the destiny of our children,” he the lawmaker added, and vowed to lobby for revocation of the ban to allow teachers to take full charge of students’ discipline.

Nicholas Kaloki, a veteran teacher and father of three who has already emerged as a leading spokesman for those who want the cane restored, even went to court seeking restoration of “regulated” corporal punishment in schools with bamboo sticks.

In his application, which was thrown out as government officials insist they will not consider a return to the days of corporal punishment, only experienced disciplinarians, like the headmaster, were to be allowed to administer the blows, but with a witness to deter abuse.

Kenya is among 39 countries in the world where cruelty to children is widespread in schools, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report whose data was collected between 2005 and 2014, but released last year.

Hidden in plain sight

“Reported use of both mild and severe punishment was highest in Kenya, where almost all children received a mild form of physical discipline while nearly two thirds were subjected to severe corporal punishment,” says the report, titled Hidden in Plain Sight.

Researchers found that teachers were the most commonly reported perpetrators of violence among children in the four sub-Saharan African countries of Ghana (34 per cent), Kenya (47 per cent), Uganda (58 per cent) and Tanzania (39 per cent).

In another study — by Baspcan, a children abuse prevention organisation — in Kenya in 2010, teachers said they continued using corporal punishment because it was the most effective way to discipline children and parents had authorised its use.

But according to Ministry of Education Quality Assurance Director Mwinyi Pembe, parents who encourage teachers to punish their children are also breaking the law.

The Baspcan report explains that although the Kenyan government has introduced laws to protect children, teachers will readily break them if they believe it is for the children’s good. The paper recommends the involvement of the Kenyan government in training teachers on non-violent ways of disciplining children.

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‘Can our teachers be referred to as criminals?’

ON JANUARY 11, THIS YEAR, a rather interesting letter popped up on the Daily Nation News Desk mailbox. The subject line read “Are our teachers criminals?” and the writer, who said he was 12 — we have since discovered he is 13 — said he was using his dad’s e-mail address to contact us.

Instead of publishing the e-mail as requested, we contacted the dad, who, though bemused, agreed to link us up with his boy. Here, an edited version of the letter Fahmi* sent us:

Could our math teacher be referred to as a criminal? This is the question I have been asking since I was enrolled into a private primary school in Machakos County in January 2014.

Raised abroad, I had not been introduced to corporal punishment until we moved to Kenya. Since I joined the school I have been beaten on several occasions, in more ways than one.

When I complained about it, my father gave me some good advice; that I should dialogue with the teacher until he or she gives a good reason for meting extreme punishment even for minor mistakes. This worked until I met a teacher who refused to listen to my explanations or reasons. So I simply gave up.

Kenya’s regulations on school discipline authorise corporal punishment to restricted limits, but teachers do not respect the limits.

The infliction of corporal punishment is not checked well; it is arbitrary and often brutal, resulting in injury many times. There are cases in which pupils are physically and mentally affected, and, in extreme cases, die.

Speaking from my short personal experience, children are punished for offences like speaking Sheng or failing exams. Passing a law is not enough, enforcing it is. Motivation, encouragement and incentives work better with children.

On the night I complained to my father, I explained to him what had happened at school and asked him if he could talk with the head teacher about it.

The next day, my father took me to school and had a chat with the teacher. They agreed that neither the teacher nor the matron had any permission to cane me, or any other pupil for that matter.

I encourage my classmates whose parents have not come to talk to the head teacher over this to stand up to the tyranny and remind them it is an illegal act.