No more corporal punishment in Zimbabwe schools

The Government has outlawed corporal punishment in schools leaving school heads and teachers used to applying physical pain on errant children in a quagmire.

Mrs Constance Chigwamba the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education told school heads at Regina Mundi High School in Gweru on Thursday that anyone who applied an form of physical pain on children either at home or in school risked prosecution under the new constitution.

"We are rectifying some of our policies to align them with the new constitution. As a ministry we took a position to stop the application of corporal punishment on pupils as this form of disciplining a child has proved to have some adverse effects on children," she said.

Mrs Chigwanba said the education policy which allowed teachers or school heads to log in first before applying corporal punishment on errant pupils should stop as it has been overtaken by the new constitution on children's rights.

"Previously, the ministry's policy was you log in when you want to give corporal punishment on a child, but children's rights say that is not acceptable.

Let's find other ways of disciplining our children, inflicting pain may have an adverse effect on the child. It is common cause that there are some children who are a challenge when it comes to discipline. Let's exclude those children who are a problem after we had exhausted all other means of discipline them," she said.

The Permanent Secretary was in Gweru to confer the Secretary's Merit Award to Regina Mundi High School, an award that is given to a school with excellent results and sound management, among other things.

Mrs Chigwamba said schools should also desist from punishing pupils who default paying fees by either withholding their results or chasing them away from class.

She said chasing away pupils or withholding their results over fees was against the country's laws as it infringed on the children's rights.

"Our Government is pro poor and we don't allow school heads to chase away pupils over school fees.

I have even written to the Zimbabwe School Examination Council to inform them that it's an offence for schools to withhold pupils' results over fees.

It's a vicious circle, Government is struggling to pay fees for children on Beam. It is in arrears since 2012. On the other hand, there is no money to pay Zimsec examination markers and there is therefore no need to punish the children," she said.

Mrs Chigwamba said it was every child's right to attain education. She said schools should therefore come up with other means of recovering their money from parents instead of chasing away pupils for withholding their results. She also took a dig on schools for coming up with unrealistic levy structures. The permanent secretary said her ministry was in the process of investigating the high levies.

"As school heads, we should familiarise ourselves with the constitution of Zimbabwe. It's in breach of the children's rights to chase them away over fees. Let's engage the parents and come up with a payment plan. Some of the levies charged by certain schools are unjustifiable and we are looking into this matter," she said.

Mrs Chigwamba said the multi-currency regime has helped stabilise the country's inflation levels but schools continued to de-value the United Sates dollar by unnecessarily increasing levies every now and then.

"A pro poor Government requires that education be affordable to every single child, so why do we continue to increase fees and levies in our schools? We are the only country which has managed to de-value the US dollar. Why are we doing that?" asked Mrs Chigwamba.

On corporal punishment, Mrs Chigwamba said the act has since been outlawed.