CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN NIGERIAN SCHOOLS

According a to  dictionary definition, corporal punishment " is a form a punishment achieved by inflicting blow to the offender's body ". The United Nation Committee on Right of the Child (UNCRC) defines corporal punishment as "any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort however light".
 

Corporal punishment in schools is a form of punishment inflicted on students body by teachers, administrators, or even fellow students for various offenses. Corporal punishment in Nigerian schools is as old as its education system. From the Traditional education system in the south to the Almajiri/Islamic education system in the north, corporal punishment particularly canning was a common practice. Since the advent of Western education, corporal punishment had been introduced in schools as a means of correction and discipline. The practice has largely gone unchanged in schools contrary to scientific findings of educational psychology that such method of corrections does more damage than it hopes to correct in children.
 

The punishment is quite rampant at all levels of basic education in Nigeria. Public schools are most notorious for the practice, its use in the private school sector is often limited or totally disproved. Some public schools (as the rural school where i served as a youth corp member) employs staff for the purpose of discipline and they use whips at the discharge of their service. In addition, student's leader like head prefects are given powers to discipline fellow students and enforce school rules and regulation. Things are much more worse in boarding schools, whereby, any one called senior can use corporal punishment at free will even for the pleasure of it. Ex-students of boarding schools like myself cannot in a life time forget the cruel use of some kind of punishment as a tool to effect "positive" change and orientation in students. In most cases, bullying is preferably used to describe the actions of teachers and fellow students, but all these are mostly done in the name of discipline and corporal punishments are certainly the "best" means of discipline.
Despite condemnation of its use by concerned groups, there are several factors that encourages the use of corporal punishment in schools.
 

There is the legal aspect, there are laws that does not expressly prohibit but also implicitly encourages the use of corporal punishment in schools. Article 295(4) of the criminal code that govern Southern Nigeria states that "a schoolmaster or a person acting as a schoolmaster has the authority for correction including the power to determine in what cases correction ought to be inflicted". While article 55 of Northern penal code states that "nothing is an offense which does not amount to the infliction of grievous hurt upon any person and which is done by a schoolmaster for the purpose of correcting a child under eighteen years entrusted to his charge".
So its no surprise that, in two private schools where i have taught, proprietors had stated in staff meetings that they do not allow teachers to use corporal punishment to discipline any child, they alone (the proprietors) hold the exclusive right to use the punishment, thus any case of indiscipline that would require corporal punishment should be referred to them.
 

Though, it should be stated that there is also the Child Right Act passed by the Nigeria's National Assembly that protect children from abuses and corporal punishment but not all states of the federation has adopt the act nor repeal legislation encouraging the use of corporal punishment in schools.
But the most important factor that influences the use of corporal punishment isn't the law but the effect that it produces. Most teachers that uses corporal punishment tend to derive satisfaction from the changes it most often produce. Sometimes, its effect is immediate, producing an immediate desired change in the student, thus, corporal punishments are more appealing than other methods of correction for disobedience, anti-social behaviors or habits. Corporal punishments, particularly canning has the characteristic of inciting fear in children and thus serves as an effective means to force a desired change, making it appealing to lots of teachers and administrator.
 

Also, parents and the public mostly do not see anything wrong in the use of corporal punishment, in fact some parent openly support its use, sometimes quoting biblical verses "spare the rod and spoil the child" or to mention that, they equally went through similar discipline method and to the best of their knowledge, it worked well giving the right intention for its use.
 

At the school where i taught, a parent once request from teachers to use cane on her son if he desist from arriving to school late. According to her, the student often leave home to school early, but he plays a lot on his way, thereby arriving late to school, so she would prefer if canning was applied often as punishment for his perpetual lateness to school. That's just an instance of a parent approving of corporal punishment but there are much more of such concessions from parents.
 

So much ink has already been spilled on the short and long term effect of corporal punishment on individuals, so their is no intention to discuss the details here. Some effects are well established facts while others are simply debatable. Nonetheless, there are negative effects associated with corporal punishments, some effects are more pronounced in the larger society than in the school where the individual was corporally punished.

Often cited effects in literature are that corporal punishment could lead to delinquency, anti-social behaviors, fear, depression, anger, anxiety, feelings of humiliation, impaired cognitive development, tendency to cheat, lie and bully others. Asides these, corporal punishment could also damage the teacher-student relationship which could negatively affect a child's learning.
 

Without doubt, corporal punishments in Nigerian schools will continue to be used as a tool of discipline as there is little or no awareness and sensitization of teachers and school administrators on alternative to and effect of corporal punishments. Making laws alone won't be enough without enforcing it and encouraging in the long term the education of teachers on implementing alternative tools of discipline.