When was caning banned

What did religion have to do with right and wrong? Anyway, I prayed. And my prayers were answered! No-one came to the door looking for me. No-one snitched that I was at the fight.

I got away with it. And I think teenagers are interested too. The book features Samuel, a free black boy living in the South.

In a moment of stress, Samuel makes a similar bargain to mine - though he does it to save his brother rather than himself. So the book is about how we come to believe the things we do — not only religious belief but also cultural.

I wanted to know how plantation owners justified themselves and how the same God served both master and slave. The ban on corporal punishment came into force in in British state schools private schools took a while longer: until in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.

Thirty years later and it feels like history, something children will only come across in books. Why I'm glad corporal punishment is now only found in books. Even the Soviet Union gave it up by So why is England so hit-thirsty?

One can only speculate if these days he would be made into a hero or villain by the tabloid press. Perhaps it would. But given everywhere else has coped without it for more than years it was probably just as well that his amendment fell. In my first month as headteacher in January , HMI with responsibility for Independent schools visited the school to feel my collar.

He checked the school boundary, to make sure I knew it was secure, he checked the admissions register to ensure I knew how to admit and depart pupils, he checked the daily attendance register to ensure I monitored absence and its causes, and he checked that I kept a punishment book normal quarto exercise book, nothing fancy and wrote in it the details of the child, the reason and the number of strokes with a cane I had administered at one sitting. I was advised never to hit a child more than 6 times at a visit.

HMI passed over to me an leaflet advertising the supply of school rattan canes — he made it quite clear I could not use a garden bamboo from the greenhouse. Caning rapidly reduced during my first three years, as I had to navigate through the expectations of teachers whose weekly spellings and homework defaults were supported by such punishments.

To truly put the tin lid on any ideas of european grandeur I might have had, my parents were both from the Isle of Man!! I and many of my friends where caned in school in the isle of man and now when I tell my children when I was your age I got caned for missing lessons or talking in class they look horrified. I now realise how wrong it was and how perverse the teachers giving the punishment where. I feel like making our government apologies for allowing this to go on so long.

Since , when President Daniel arap Moi was forced to allow a multiparty system, the government has sought to undermine any reform that would end the absolute executive power wielded by the president and his ruling party. The president has responded to calls for reform with a combination of recalcitrance and brutality, all the while making promises to bring about change. Multiparty elections have been characterized by violence.

Constant delays have characterized the constitutional reform process, and state-sponsored violence against ethnic groups perceived to support the opposition has resulted in the displacement of an estimated , people since At the same time, both the International Monetary Fund IMF and the World Bank have suspended loan agreements as a means of pushing the government to fight corruption and to institute economic reform.

These loan withdrawals, coupled with the political insecurity, have caused capital flight and a high rate of inflation. Under the current constitutional system, this is President Moi's final term in office. The next elections are expected by January and the ruling party is now almost wholly preoccupied with succession concerns. The political turmoil has diminished the prospects of any concerted government commitment to meaningful reform in the educational system in the foreseeable future.

Since the s, Kenya has faced an almost continual economic decline. In recent years, the union has been in sharp conflict with the government over poor salaries and proposed retrenchment plans. Teacher salaries are among the lowest for any Kenyan civil servants, and the social prestige of teachers has also declined in recent years, according to many Human Rights Watch interviewees.

Before the election, in order to garner their vote, President Moi promised to raise teacher salaries to KSh5, to KSh42, per month approximately U. In July and October of , teachers conducted nation-wide strikes to protest the government's failure to implement the promised salary increase.

Poor working conditions have a dramatic effect on the climate in Kenyan schools. Even for committed teachers, the ability to retain control over the classroom is diminished in the face of large classes with sometimes more than fifty students.

Classrooms are often overcrowded, without even basic supplies. Low salaries further reduce teacher morale, and also lead some teachers to put more energy into supplemental income-producing schemes than into teaching. To make ends meet, many of the lowest-paid teachers are forced to find housing in slum areas; 75 many other teachers run small businesses or subsistence farms on the side, or offer extra tutoring outside of regular school hours to students who can pay.

A common complaint from parents and students, was that teachers often compel students to participate in such "voluntary" extra tutoring classes, administering corporal punishment to students who failed to pay for the "extra help. On Human Rights Watch visits to some schools, we found quite a few classrooms in which children had been left on their own, with no supervising teacher, for lengthy periods of time. At the household level, poverty is endemic in Kenya.

According to Government statistics, the incidence of poverty in Kenya is 47 percent in rural areas and 29 percent in urban areas. Many children in Kenya do not have enough to eat, may travel a long distance to school, or work inside or outside the home outside of school hours. These external factors affect their abilities to concentrate and the amount of time and energy they can devote to school.

The economic crisis in Kenya is compounded by one of the highest population growth rates in the world and the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Further, the high population growth has produced a high dependency ratio,as almost 50 percent of the population is less than fifteen years old. This demographic structure places high demands on social services such as primary education and depresses per capita gross domestic product. Education represents both one of the most prominent challenges and one of the most hopeful prospects for future growth.

Yet, although recognition of the importance of education plays a prominent role in the government's stated policy plan-Kenya's National Development Plan and its National Poverty Eradication Plan-the government has not committed the necessary political will nor allocated sufficient resources to create a national educational system with optimal working conditions for teachers and students alike. The Kenyan Educational System. At the end of eight years of primary education, pupils sit for the Kenya Certificate for Primary Education exam.

Those who successfully pass the exam and who can afford to pay school fees advance to secondary education. Many Kenyans have little access to basic education, and a high dropout rate has also plagued the educational system in recent years. Primary school enrollment relative to the school-age population has dropped substantially. Between to , the primary school enrollment rate dropped from 95 percent to Only 43 percent of pupils who entered Standard One in reached Standard Eight by The completion rate is lower for girls than for boys; the primary school completion rate for girls is only about 35 percent, compared to 55 percent for boys.

Many Kenyan classrooms have high student to teacher ratios. Ministry of Education officials reported to Human Rights Watch that the target ratio for primary schools is thirty to one, and for secondary schools sixteen to one.

High student to teacher ratios can make it difficult for instructors to address the educational and personal needs of each pupil, and can make it challenging for teachers to maintain control of their classrooms.

With such high ratios, students may not receive the attention and encouragement that they need to advance through the educational system. Poverty is also a major cause of the low enrollment and high dropout rates. Children drop out to assist parents in earning a living or because they are unable to finance their educations. The Kenyan government allocates 7 percent of its gross domestic product to education, a sum that is higher than most other sub-Saharan countries; however, these expenditures only cover 69 percent of the cost of primary education.

The remainder of the financial burden falls on parents and communities, in what is popularly called the "cost-sharing" plan. Parents and communities must pay for uniforms, textbooks, building fees repair, maintenance, and construction of school buildings , and activities fees.

These costs place education beyond the means of many poor families, while many others struggle to keep their children in school. Children may face harassment for wearing torn and dirty uniforms, or children are inadequately prepared because they lack text books and perform poorly. They may be sent home from school and told to return with their parents and the overdue payment; some children simply do not return, fearing further humiliation in school.

According to government statistics, 4. In , President Moi abolished the "building fees" that are traditionally imposed by local School Committees and Parents Associations.

In practice, many schools continue to charge mandatory fees, although since the official abolition of school fees by the government, many schools refer to the costs as "levies" or "assessments" rather than "fees.

According to one official of the Kenya National Union of Teachers KNUT , "forced activity fees demanded by school headmasters [is] a major contributor to pupils going without education, especially in rural areas. Also, despite the official abolition of "school fees" on the primary education level, local communities are still expected to engage in "cost-sharing" to help keep up with the country's population growth. Secondary education in Kenya is neither free nor universal, but it too has expanded greatly since independence.

Primary school students in Standard Eight take the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam, and on the basis of their scores they may be admitted to Form One; currently, the secondary schools can accommodate less than half the students taking the examination. Like primary school enrollment, however, secondary enrollment has dropped recently, from Boys were hit with the birch twigs on their bare buttocks.

Furthermore in Britain in the 19th-century children were hit at work. In the early 19th century in textile mills, children who were lazy were hit with leather straps. Furthermore, lazy children sometimes had their heads ducked in a container of water.

In Britain until the late 20th century teachers were allowed to hit children. In the 19th century hitting boys and girls with a bamboo cane became popular. In the 20th century, the cane was used in both primary and secondary schools. Meanwhile, the ruler was a punishment commonly used in primary schools in the 20th century. The teacher hit the child on the hand with a wooden ruler. The slipper was often used in secondary schools.

The slipper is a euphemism. Normally it was a trainer or a plimsoll. Teachers usually PE teachers used a trainer to hit children on the backside. The tawse was a punishment used in Scottish schools. It was a leather strap with two or three tails.