The role of schools has always been to provide children not just with a high level of academic education, but also to develop students' character and discipline. School rules are implemented in order to teach pupils the proper etiquette, and inculcate a sense of discipline in following regulations. These rules are enforced by a wide variety of punishments, such as suspensions, warnings, and demerit point systems. However, the long-standing method of corporal punishment has begun to be phased out in the recent few years, or even completely banned in some countries.
I believe that punishment serves three purposes, firstly to deter people from committing offences, secondly to make sure people do not repeat their offences multiple times, and thirdly to set an example to others, so a punishment that fulfills these criteria can be deemed as effective. Unquestionably, corporal punishment does fulfill these purposes; no student would dare commit an offence after seeing his peers being caned or hit, or being punished himself. We are constantly told anecdotes by our teachers and parents about how they used to be caned in class or slapped simply because they did not do homework, and those punishments helped them to achieve what they are today. Undeniably, the punishments did not hurt them in any way.
However, in a few cases, corporal punishment does have severe consequences on the student being punished. Many cases in which students have ended up in hospital after beatings from teachers have appeared in the news. In January, a student in India had to be hospitalised after his teacher beat him with a stick for over an hour, in June 2010, a student from Mianyang high school in China sustained bruises and bleeding from her eye after being slapped by a teacher. These few cases, outside of a school, could easily be classified as assault, a serious offence. It also makes us wonder, is it worth putting students at risk of such serious injury, despite corporal punishment's effectiveness.
Furthermore, there are some areas in which corporal punishment can be considered as inappropriate. For example, it may be fine to cane a student who has repeatedly committed many serious offences like vandalism and theft, but would it be alright to beat a preschool student who has simply forgotten his homework? In these situations where offences are less serious, other punishments would do just as well, without inflicting the damage to students' mental and physical well-being. Examples would be a demerit point system that causes pupils to have to forego certain privileges or face suspension after accumulating a certain number of points.
From the point of view of a student, corporal punishment may not be the best way to learn a lesson. Violence should be very strongly discouraged, especially to impressionable children of a young age. A student may not be repentant for an act of hitting another student , and not understand the problem with violence, when he is beaten for it himself. Furthermore, students will cease to understand what is truly wrong with the acts they commit when they are simply inflicted with pain every time they do something that breaks the rules. Other students may also be traumatised by the violence inflicted on their peers. Getting physically beaten by teachers too often may also cause students to lose trust in their teachers, which will cause them to fail in their role as mentors who not only guide their students academically, but play the role of parents outside the home.
However, there are also some cases where a pupil is completely unrepentant of repeated serious offences he has committed, and is not forward thinking enough to realise the damage that some non-physical punishments such as suspension and expulsion can do to his future, so in these cases, the only way to make these students respect rules is to show them explicitly that any act that goes against the rules will be dealt with severely, and the outright physical pain can teach them to be repentant.
In conclusion, I believe that corporal punishment should be delivered in schools, but only in very limited circumstances, to prevent the negative effects it has on the physical and emotional well-being of students. In cases where the offences committed are less serious and do not require corporal punishment, other non-violent means can be used for punishment, and they are often just as effective.
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