A survey of South Africans over the age of 16 has found that, despite the upsurge of violence in schools most respondents are against the idea of re-introducing corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment was abolished with the introduction of the Schools Act in 1998.
The findings were drawn from the South African Social Attitudes Survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council between 2003 and 2006.
Respondents were required to respond to six statements on discipline on a scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘do not know’.
Just over 16000 respondents took part in the survey over four years and it was found that the majority (91%) favoured ‘reasoning/discussion’ as the most effective method to discipline unruly learners at South African schools.
Eighty-one percent of respondents supported ‘giving additional learning tasks’ as an effective disciplinary method, while punishing learners with physical labour was the least supported with only a third of respondents indicating support.
The use of ‘corporal punishment by either a teacher or school principal’ and ‘keeping learners after school’ received equal support (51% each).
The study found that there were significant differences in attitude toward the various methods across the provinces. Apart from the ‘reasoning/ discussion’ method, respondents from the Western Cape tended to show the highest support for all the methods.
The highest proportion (just over 60%) of the respondents in Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Free State and Northern Cape supported the use of corporal punishment in the absence of ‘reasoning/discussion’. Conversely, this method received the least support in Limpopo and North West (about 42%).
There were also statistically significant differences in attitudes towards the use of corporal punishment by gender and religious affiliation.
Females, and respondents who did not associate themselves with any religion were less likely to support the use of corporal punishment. Females were also found to be less supportive of ‘keeping learners after school hours’ and ‘giving of additional learning tasks’.