2023: Head Boy says bring back the cane

When, in 2023, the Head Boy of a school in South Africa told a public meeting that the cane should be brought back he was loudly cheered.

Bring back corporal punishment, says school’s head boy

The head boy of Lawson Brown High School says corporal punishment needs to be reintroduced at schools.

Dressed in his school uniform, with multiple award badges pinned to his lapels, Ronan van der Vaardt, who is also a Nelson Mandela Bay junior councillor, was speaking at the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill session in a packed Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton yesterday.

Ronan said he disagreed with many of the proposed clauses in the bill but would focus on the corporal punishment clause.

“Corporal punishment can bring immediate compliance and deter undesirable behaviour. It establishes clear boundaries.

“Teachers are being attacked. Since the abolition of corporal punishment, teacher attacks have gone up exponentially.

“Corporal punishment should be instilled at schools.”

His call received a loud cheer from the audience.

Several hundred people attended the event, hosted by the basic education parliamentary portfolio committee under the leadership of committee chair Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba.

The bill proposes 36 amendments, including that grade R should be made compulsory and that basic education legislation should provide for conditions under which liquor may be sold or consumed on school premises.

The amendments also seek to extend and refine the provisions relating to the closure of a public school and provide for the prohibition of corporal punishment at school.

The bill was enthusiastically endorsed by a representative of the SA Democratic Teachers

Union and a representative of the Congress of School Governing Bodies who declared that “it speaks to the blood of Hector Pieterson [the pupil whose death became the symbol of the 1976 Soweto Uprising]”.

A number of speakers criticised the amendments, however, including a home-schooled matriculant who said the proposed changes sought to force a “one-size-fits-all” on home schooling, which was geared around pupils developing at their own pace.

A teacher from a Bethelsdorp school said if corporal punishment was going to be banned then a practical alternative needed to be made available to teachers.

She questioned why transport had not been made available to people.

A headmistress who spoke next raised the loudest applause from the audience when she called on the basic education department to stop closing so-called unviable schools.

“These small schools are often the lifeblood of rural communities.

“Most public schools are already overcrowded.

“Please can the Eastern Cape education MEC [Fundile Gade] look to the model in the Western Cape where they have placed a moratorium on the closure of small schools?”

Another speaker tore into the proposal to make grade R compulsory, saying the move was “set up to fail” unless the department could improve the efficiency of its funding systems.

The draft bill also calls for a penalty amendment for anyone who prevents a pupil from attending school or disrupts school activities.

Nobody in the audience during the first part of yesterday’s event took exception to this clause.

As published in The Herald (South Africa), 12 Jun 2023.

Picture credit: Sting Pictures

 

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