Stop outlawed corporal punishment in schools

A parent shows injured her daughter sustained after a teacher beat her at Kaluni Primary School in Kakamega. [File, Standard]

Three teachers at the Kamukunji Primary School in Nyandarua County have been accused of assaulting a Grade One pupil so savagely they severely injured his private parts. It is heart-rending to imagine the violence those adults meted out on a pupil of that age. No matter the provocation, there was no excuse for such a beastly act.

School is a protected environment that ought to be of free of abuse, neglect, violence or any inhuman treatment.

The Constitution emphasises that every child has a right to be protected from abuse, neglect and harmful practices. Equally important to note, corporal punishment was outlawed in schools. And so any teacher who administers corporal punishment on a learner is breaking the law and should be sanctioned severely. Even in extreme cases of student indiscipline, mechanisms exist for dealing with that.

Sadly, corporal punishment is still being administered in some schools. Just a day ago, a teacher in a school in Nakuru County is said to have smashed the face of a student using a mirror and in the process, damaged his eye.

Last year, a video showing four teachers mistreating school girls in a school in Vihiga County caused much outrage. Yet these are only a few cases that  come to light. Many school-going children are subjected to ill-treatment.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Ministry of Education must enforce the ban on corporal punishment to protect learners while at the same time weed out teachers who refuse to be patient with the learners.

We cannot have sadists masquerading as teachers.