Africa-Press – Botswana. It is just a matter of time before the Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr. Douglas Letsholathebe presents an amendment bill to the Education Act that, for the first time, will ban the use of corporal punishment in Botswana schools.
That revelation was made by Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mabuse Pule, when he stood in for Letsholathebe during last week’s session of Ntlo ya Dikgosi. The revelation came courtesy of a motion by Kgosi Lotlamoreng II of Barolong who, through a motion, requested the government “to consider amending the Education Regulations to allow administration of corporal punishment on students.” Giving the government’s response, Pule said that the amended regulations will outlaw corporal punishment. The ban will mark the first time in Botswana’s history that teachers are not allowed to administer corporal punishment on learners.
Practically all dikgosi who got a chance to contribute to the debate supported the motion. Holding himself up as a perfect example of the point he was making, Kgosi James Khumanego of Ngwaketse West Region, said that corporal punishment that he received as a child didn’t kill him. Indeed, there is folk saying in Setswana that “thupa ga e bolaye” – meaning that corporal punishment doesn’t kill.
As part of effort to implement “child-friendly policies” in schools, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development has placed greater emphasis on programmes like guidance and counselling. On the other hand, Kgosi Sibangani Mosojane of North East Region said that counselling doesn’t work and in service of that argument, revealed that teachers themselves bring wayward students to his kgotla to be corporally punished. Where they would have been caned or expelled from school altogether in the past, today overly wayward students are typically suspended from school for a number of days. Mosojane mentioned an incident in his region in which a student floored a teacher with a blow and was suspended as punishment. The Mosojane kgosi said that the suspension only served to embolden the student in his disrespect of authority whereas corporal punishment would have set him straight.
The irony of the government banning corporal punishment is that in 2020, Press discovered that some Gaborone schools were quietly taking wayward students to the kgotla to be corporally punished. It would learn from the Batlokwa Deputy Kgosi, Spokes Gaborone, that the Tlokweng kgotla has handled student indiscipline cases from Gaborone Senior Secondary School, Naledi Senior Secondary School, Nanogang Junior Secondary School and Bonnington Junior Secondary School – all in Gaborone. While cagey with some precise details, Gaborone said that the corporal punishment meted out at the kgotla is done in accordance with the law, is administered by the culprits’ male relatives (like uncles) and in the presence of police officers. Thankfully, a source at the Tlokweng kgotla revealed that most of the culprits already look terrified when they arrive at the kgotla.
“Most are spoiled brats who basically run their households and are used to doing whatever and wherever with impunity. It is only now that they are being introduced to real punishment and know that unlike in school or at home, they can’t get their way,” said the source.
The Ministry gave this arrangement what essentially amounted to a wink and a nod. A year later, then education minister, Fidelis Molao, would praise the Bakgatla Regent, Kgosi Bana Sekai, for providing this same service to schools in Mochudi.
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