Corporal punishment used to be prevalent in schools in many parts of the world, but in recent decades it has been outlawed in 128 countries including all of Europe, most of South America, as well as in Canada, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand and several other countries. One education committee, Romford (then in Essex but now part of Greater London), unusually banned public CP in 1961 after six girls were caned in front of 600 schoolmates. "Getting your detentions caned off" was an offer aimed especially at sportsmen at some schools, where the student's presence at an important match, which he would otherwise miss, might be crucial. development and not resorting to corporal punishment, and the role of national bodies in implementing the RTE Act, stating: "This advisory should be used by the State Governments/UT Administrations to ensure that appropriate State/school level guidelines on prevention of corporate punishment and appropriate redressal of any complaints, are framed, disseminated, acted upon and monitored. was the traditional command to a pupil about to receive posterial discipline, but there was no consensus across different schools as to how this should be done. Privately funded schools came a little bit later: 1998 in England and Wales, 2000 in [121][122], Caning, usually applied to the palm or clothed bottom, is a common form of discipline in Malaysian schools. [228][229] The caning of girls is not particularly unusual, and girls are as likely to be caned at school as boys.[230][231][232]. Cuartas offers three steps educators and caregivers can take toward eradicating spanking in schools and homes: Recognize that spanking is not an effective tool of discipline in the classroom or at home. So too is this 1945 case in which a bare-bottom slippering at a prep school was held not to be excessive or unreasonable. [225], Corporal punishment is technically unlawful in schools under article 75 of the Education Law 2005,[226] but there is no clear statement that corporal punishment is prohibited. Text of England and Wales law banning corporal punishment in all schools "Bend over!" Probably the most frequently used aid to punishment was a chair. [96], Corporal punishment in public schools was banned in 1914, but remained de facto commonplace until 1984, when a law banning all corporal punishment of minors, whether in schools or in the home, was introduced. R v Secretary of State for Education and Employment and Others ex parte Williamson and Others Most teachers would hold the implement by its heel and apply the sole to the offender, but some maintained that it was even more effective the other way round, with the heavier heel end being the part that made contact. In Scotland, it was banned in 2000, and in Northern Ireland in 2003. The use of corporal punishment in schools was prohibited by the South African Schools Act, 1996. The Ministry of Education has stipulated a maximum of three strokes per occasion. (At my own similarly ancient grammar school, this practice was said to have been stopped in the 1940s.) Punishments include hitting with rebenques and slapping in the face. (2) These varied a lot, but most were not very specific about the modus operandi. And as recently as 2012 the co-founder and chairman of the governors of the most high-profile of the then brand-new so-called "Free Schools" said he would happily restore CP if it were allowed. Legality of corporal punishment of minors in Europe. The remainder were spread between those where canings took place every day and those where CP was almost unheard of, with every possible variation in between. [123][124][125] There have been reports of students being caned in front of the class/school for lateness, poor grades, being unable to answer questions correctly or forgetting to bring a textbook. For some early such cases, see this Dec 1900 news item and this May 1903 one (the latter being interesting also for its use by the magistrate of the colloquial term "to be swished" meaning to be caned) and this Nov 1933 one. WebNew laws which came into force at midnight allow mild smacking but criminalise any physical punishment which causes visible bruising. There was the odd exception like Northwich Girls' Grammar School; but even there, the formidable Miss Janet Dines claimed she had hardly used the cane in ten years before the event that got her into all the newspapers in 1976. More often, though, "getting the cane" was a punishment that (unlike detention) at least had the advantage, from the student's point of view, that with any luck one's parents might not get to hear about it. However, the court did hold that the boys had been deprived of their right to an education in keeping with their parents' views, contrary to Article 2 ("the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions"). In fact neither of them ever did receive the belt. (2) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a sentence which could be imposed for assault.[165]. [12] According to the United States Department of Education, more than 216,000 students were subjected to corporal punishment during the 200809 school year. In 2008 a new round of controversy over the issue was set off when a survey found that one teacher in five, and almost a quarter of all secondary-school teachers, would still like to see corporal punishment reinstated. [177] Corporal punishment (especially caning) on students of both genders remains common[178][179][180][181] and accepted in practice. The only thing on which everybody seems to agree is that, for better or worse, there is no realistic prospect of CP ever being restored in Britain. [171][184][185][186][187], In Uganda, it is common practice for teachers to attempt to control large, overcrowded classes by corporal punishment. Common reasons for punishment include talking in class, not finishing homework, mistakes made with classwork, fighting, and truancy. [155], Corporal punishment of children remains legal in schools, homes, alternative care and day-care centres. [4][5], In the English-speaking world, the use of corporal punishment in schools has historically been justified by the common-law doctrine in loco parentis, whereby teachers are considered authority figures granted the same rights as parents to discipline and punish children in their care if they do not adhere to the set rules. WebCorporal punishment is illegal in schools in a total of 132 countries. [224], Corporal punishment in all settings, including schools, was prohibited in Venezuela in 2007. He was often caned at Stouts Hill prep school around 1970, but harbours no grudges. [150], In 1783, Poland became the first country in the world to prohibit corporal punishment. [133], In New Zealand's schools, corporal punishment was used commonly on both girls and boys. [7] According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "Corporal punishment signals to the child that a way to settle interpersonal conflicts is to use physical force and inflict pain". See for instance this Nov 1997 news item about an under-achieving 13-year-old whose parents sent him to school in Ghana, with miraculous results, and this similar Nov 2007 report in which a British 17-year-old, sent away, also to Ghana, to study for his GCSEs, admitted he had been caned there several times and agreed he was benefiting academically from the novel experience of strict discipline. [151] Peter Newell assumes that perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose Some Thoughts Concerning Education explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. [139][140][141], This was criminalised on 23 July 1990,[142] when Section 139A of the Education Act 1989 was inserted by the Education Amendment Act 1990. [citation needed] Other communist regimes followed suit: for instance, corporal punishment was "unknown" by students in North Korea in 2007. [41], Banned in 1813, corporal punishment was re-legalised in 1815 and physical punishments lasted legally until 1884, when their usage was banned (with the exception of court ordered punishments). removal from a class or group. Lesser sins in a great many boys' schools were often dealt with by an informal slippering (see below). (6) Back in 1914 that same union went so far as to claim that all teachers, not just head teachers, had the right to cane, and that this right "must not be interfered with by local regulations" -- a position they never in fact achieved. Corporal punishment in Norwegian schools was strongly restricted in 1889, and was banned outright in 1936. In Manchester it seems to have been left up to individual schools, with a culprit at boys-only establishments such as St Augustines RC being asked to bend over a chair to be strapped, while his opposite number at one of the city's mainstream co-ed schools would often have to hold out his hands, following the Newcastle/Scotland model. They assumed a right of chastisement was a defense of justification against the accusation of "causing bodily harm" per Paragraph (=Section) 223 Strafgesetzbuch (Federal Penal Code). [23][89], Colombian private and public schools were banned from using "penalties involving physical or psychological abuse" through the Children and Adolescents Code 2006, though it is not clear whether this also applies to indigenous communities. The UK government argued, unsuccessfully, that opinions about corporal punishment did not amount to "philosophical convictions". With the troubles with some pupils at some schools that you hear about on the News, the 447 (2002); Deana A. Pollard, Banning Child Corporal Punishment, 77 Tul. It is a matter of conjecture how much part the anti-CP organisation STOPP played in causing this snowballing trend. In Tyrer v.UK the Court held that the judicial birching of a 15 year-old boy breached his right to protection from degrading punishment.In the following two decades the Court condemned school corporal punishment, first in This was a rare case of the media writing about the existence of the slipper in their coverage of school CP, which usually dealt only with the cane. It was not completely abolished everywhere [50], Corporal punishment in schools was banned in Austria in 1974. In my own personal view as a non-lawyer, I find some of the argumentation quite difficult to follow. WebExtraordinary records reveal how corporal punishment was meted out in our schools Headmaster only permitted to use a 'thin flexible cane' Youngsters were given smacks Feature article on corporal punishment north of the border. [193][194] In other private schools, it was banned in 1998 (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland) and 2003 (Northern Ireland). See also this May 1978 news item about unofficial slippering at a famous boys' comprehensive school in inner London. By the late 1960s the traditional "six of the best" had given way in most places to milder penalties of only two or three strokes as the norm, though to some extent this must have been compensated for by the fact that, with the advent of synthetic textiles, trouser material became significantly thinner in the 1960s. Note that the Commission emphasises that such a school caning in a headmaster's study is an entirely different matter from judicial birching of the kind considered in the Isle of Man case, reaffirming once again that corporal punishment is not per se necessarily contrary to the Human Rights Convention. [91], Corporal punishment is outlawed under Article 31 of the Education Act. [23], Many schools in Singapore and Malaysia use caning for boys as a routine official punishment for misconduct, as also some African countries. Some restricted the number of staff permitted to inflict CP, e.g. [76], Corporal punishment in all settings, including schools, was prohibited in Brazil in 2014. [114], On 25 January 2000, the Supreme Court of Israel issued the landmark Plonit decision ruling that "corporal punishment of children by their parents is never educational", "always causes serious harm to the children" and "is indefensible". Most of the boys were from local working class families, but the school had a good reputation and they studied hard. (3) A point of view dating back at least to 1903. [162] This is administered in a formal ceremony by the school management after due deliberation, not by classroom teachers. As reported in these February 2005 news items, the highest court in the land dismissed their claims, upholding government and parliament in the 1998 blanket prohibition of all and any school CP. WebNew laws which came into force at midnight allow mild smacking but criminalise any physical punishment which causes visible bruising. [19] [7] The doctrine has its origins in an English common-law precedent of 1770. 14229/88 While most U.S. states have outlawed corporal punishment in state schools, it continues to be allowed mostly in the Southern states. Corporal punishment was banned in Soviet (and hence, Ukrainian) schools in 1917. Just one LEA, Coventry, bizarrely required all canings for both sexes, even at secondary level, to be applied to offenders' hands and not to their backsides. The only rule laid down by central government was that all formal CP was supposed to be recorded in a punishment book.(1). [UPDATE: This is more or less what later happened in Williamson, the "Christian schools" case, see above.]. This article gives a first-person account of slippering practice at a traditional boys' grammar school (ages 11 to 18 inclusive) in the 1960s, at which the cane was administered in the office for serious offences, but the slipper, applied in the classroom by individual teachers, was much more prevalent. [7] They say that evidence links corporal punishment of students to a number of adverse outcomes, including: "increased aggressive and destructive behaviour, increased disruptive classroom behaviour, vandalism, poor school achievement, poor attention span, increased drop-out rate, school avoidance and school phobia, low self-esteem, anxiety, somatic complaints, depression, suicide and retaliation against teachers". To that extent the plaintiffs, who had initially claimed a breach of Article 3 ("inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"), in fact lost their case, a fact almost unnoticed when the outcome was reported. School corporal punishment, historically widespread, was outlawed in different states via their administrative law at different times. In addition, the obligation of member states to prohibit corporal punishment in schools and elsewhere was affirmed in the 2009 Cairo Declaration on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Islamic Jurisprudence. (4) Guide to LEAs' Corporal Punishment Regulations in England and Wales, Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment, Croydon, 1979. [176], The proverb "If you love your cow, tie it up; if you love your child, beat him" is still considered "wisdom" and is held by many Thai parents and teachers. It cannot be emphasised too strongly that these are all broad generalisations, to which exceptions could always be found. As far as is known, corporal punishment was nowhere systematically made a matter of choice either for parents or students, as is nowadays routine in some American schools. It was not completely abolished everywhere until 1983. [10] (46 of these countries also prohibited corporal punishment of children in the home as of May 2015). In some Middle Eastern countries whipping is used. [100] Corporal punishment is considered unlawful in schools under article 371-1 of the Civil Code. Guidance from the government about the legal position in England concerning corporal punishment (not permitted) and other physical contact or reasonable force (still allowed). The article makes no mention of caning. [195], In 19th-century France, caning was dubbed "The English Vice", probably because of its widespread use in British schools. It is a myth that abolition was overwhelmingly demanded by school pupils themselves. It suggests that over a long period the idea that schoolteachers are to be regarded as in effect "substitute parents", and therefore should have the same disciplinary powers in law as parents, became gradually more and more questioned by the public, at least as far as ordinary day schools are concerned (the concept has always seemed to make more sense in relation to boarding schools). [119] An education ministry survey found that more than 10,000 students received illegal corporal punishment from more than 5,000 teachers across Japan in 2012 fiscal year alone. As far as I know, this is what the 1986 legislation already said, so perhaps this was just a consolidating act. The legislation came into force in 1987, but most Scottish local education authorities had already abolished it "Pants-down" punishment, not unknown in some private schools, was almost unheard of in the state sector in relatively modern times, especially from the 1960s onwards. (3) Richmond was also unusual in adding that girls, unlike boys, must not be caned at all, though they could be slapped with the open hand. Text of legislation prohibiting corporal punishment of any student, whether in a state or independent school, whose education is to any extent publicly funded. Also, some schools, even new-built comprehensive ones, introduced a system of "students' courts" at which a recommendation for CP might be one of the "sentencing" options available, but this was subject to confirmation by the teachers in charge, and it would be a member of staff who delivered the actual punishment. [148] On the provincial level, corporal punishment was partially banned in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by two laws in 2010 and 2012, and banned by Sindh in schools in 2013. According to section 10 of the act: (1) No person may administer corporal punishment at a school to a learner. The article is illustrated with pictures of a gym shoe said to have been used for the purpose at a different school in the 1970s. No LEA banned corporal punishment altogether until 1979/80, when three Labour-controlled outer London boroughs took the abolitionist plunge, followed more famously in 1981 by the huge, Labour-controlled Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), which covered 12 London boroughs, a population of nearly 3 million, and getting on for 1,000 schools. The European Court of Human Rights first challenged corporal punishment of children in 1978. Section 139A prohibits anyone employed by a school or early childhood education (ECE) provider, or anyone supervising or controlling students on the school's behalf, from using force by way of correction or punishment towards any student at or in relation to the school or the student under their supervision or control. [198][199], Sometimes, a long ruler was used on the bare legs or hands instead of a cane. Its use by ordinary teachers in grammar schools had been outlawed in 1928. CP in primary schools seems generally to have tailed off rather earlier than in secondary schools: common enough in the early 1950s, it was clearly less so by the end of the 1960s, though it had by no means disappeared everywhere even in the early 1980s, as these punishment-book extracts show. Copyright C. Farrell 2008-2021 One common method was to have the offender stretch across a desk, as in the fictional film still reproduced at the top of this page (from Melody, 1971). More informally, the "slipper" -- something of a euphemism: in fact it was normally a big, heavy gym shoe or plimsoll -- was widely used for instant, unofficial discipline over the clothed seat of both sexes (though, again, many more boys than girls), typically in the presence of classmates. A position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine", "Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Position Statement on corporal punishment", "Memorandum on the Use of Corporal Punishment in Schools", "Legislative assembly questions #0293 - Australian Psychological Society: Punishment and Behaviour Change", "General comment No. WebCorporal punishment was banned in private schools in England in 1999. WebCorporal or physical punishment is highly prevalent globally, both in homes and schools. Short article in History Today (2012) asserts that it was only in the 1890s that ordinary class teachers gained the right to use CP; before that, only head teachers were legally entitled to do so, under the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis. U. L. Rev. Its origins in an English common-law precedent of 1770 many boys ' comprehensive school in inner London held! They studied hard, homes, alternative care and day-care centres emphasised too strongly that these are broad... 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