TSC’s view on punishment is progressive

Recently, principals of secondary schools met for their yearly conference at Wild Waters Centre, Mombasa. Most Kenyans see the conference more of a talking shop and a shot in the arm to local tourism than anything to do with education.

Indeed, the conference of the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association is perceived as a holiday opportunity for principals, with most Kenyans expecting nothing much from it.

This is particularly so considering that these principals mostly concentrate on debating issues about their selfish interests rather than those of learners.

However, a presentation by the Teachers Service Commission Deputy Director, Dr Joan Ngunnzi, stole the show for its radical and progressive proposals.

According to her, students will negotiate with teachers on the type of punishment they should be given.

She said the TSC was working on a new method of discipline to be enforced in January next year.

According to her, the proposals are expected to make education and learning more attractive to learners.

This is because after headteachers were allowed to administer corporal punishment, it wasn’t made clear who was responsible for the punishment and the learners were left at the mercy of cruel, sadistic teachers.

The truth is that in many schools, corporal punishment continues to be an officially or unofficially sanctioned form of institutional child abuse.

This stems from the belief that corporal punishment builds character. Others still hold on to the Biblical philosophy of “Spare the rod, spare the child”.

Worse still, some supporters of caning mistakenly believe that corporal punishment fosters respect for rules since children who are caned develop what they call “healthy fear of authority.”

This is not necessarily true. This is because experts have pointed out that corporal punishment could cause juvenile delinquency, depression and sexual problems in the learners.

VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE

Indeed, physical punishment can bring more problems than it appears to solve. Learners tend to avoid aggressive teachers, a factor that hurts their development.

It is also instructive that physical punishment by itself does not make a modest but significant direct negative contribution to youth’s psychological adjustment. Children tend to perceive themselves as rejected, according to how frequently they are punished.

Tragically, the more rejected they perceive themselves, the more impaired their psychological adjustment tends to be.

It is also a fact that violence begets violence and the old way of beating students only make them hate school and turns them into hardcore criminals. Those who support these old ways of punishment should wake up to the reality that long gone are the days when punishment was purely retributive and deterrent.

DETER OTHERS FROM BREAKING LAW

This means that the punishment was made averse to deter others from breaking the law. There was no thought of trying to reform the offender.

Even more tragic, this treatment of offenders brutalised them and made them sullen. As result, students ended up hating teachers and the learning processes became unattractive.

It is for this reason punishment should be more reformatory as opposed to punitive. It should be recognized that the object of rules and laws must not only be to punish, but also to reform and turn the offender into a law-keeper.

Once implemented in the country, the teacher will negotiate with the student on what type of punishment is appropriate.

The teacher will get a chance of explaining the importance of being disciplined and the benefits to be accrued from being a law-keeper.

(The writer is a teacher in Gatundu South, Kiambu County) E-mali: [email protected]