In Tanzania, Sparing the Rod—and the Child—to Improve Learning

Cartoon for Tanzania Education Report — © 2017 Marco Tibasima for Human Rights Watch

Teachers often leave a mark on students. In Tanzania, it can hurt.

“When I was slapped, I felt I had the teacher’s hand on my face,” said Sandra, from Kahama district, whose name I have changed to protect her privacy.

In October, a video of a group of teacher trainees in Mbeya beating a male student who had reportedly not done his homework, went viral on the internet. The trainees were suspended and the school’s head teacher demoted.

But this was not an isolated incident, and government officials don’t always act when teachers abuse students. What was different in this case was that it was caught on camera and drew public outrage and condemnation.

Corporal punishment is a routine and state-sanctioned part of many students’ everyday reality in Tanzania, where a 2014 study by the African Child Policy Forum concluded that “the frequency of abuse by teachers … is alarmingly high.” A 2011 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study on violence against children showed that teachers in the East African country frequently whipped, kicked, punched, or threatened both female and male students, including with a weapon.

Contrary to its international human rights obligations, Tanzania has national regulations that explicitly allow corporal punishment, including guidance on caning in schools. School officials, usually head teachers, are allowed to “[strike] a pupil on his hand or on his normally clothed buttocks with a light, flexible stick but excludes striking a child with any other instrument or on any other part of the body.” Punishment should not exceed four strokes, and female pupils should only receive punishment from a female teacher. Students who refuse punishment or teachers who violate these regulations can face disciplinary action.

In a recent study, Human Rights Watch documented widespread use of corporal punishment that exceeds the legal limit of the government’s current regulations. Teachers beat students without reporting it. as is required. Children are caned or beaten for all sorts of reasons, including being late for school—often after walking for hours to get there; not answering questions correctly; failing exams; or not completing assignments. They are slapped with hands, forced to jump squats, told to kneel and walk on their knees with hands on their backs, cut grass, and mop toilets. Others endure scathing personal insults.

More than 120 Form II students prepare to sit their mock exams in a secondary school in Mwanza, northwestern Tanzania. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

A painting outside Rafiki Social Development Organization’s office in Kahama district, Shinyanga. The painting aims to create awareness about sexual abuse of girls on their way to schools, and shows a female student refusing to take money from an adult man, saying “Sidanganyiki” or “I cannot be deceived” in Kiswahili. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Eileen (pseudonym), 21, dropped out of Form II when her school conducted a pregnancy test and school officials and parents found out she was pregnant. In Tanzania, school officials routinely subject girls to forced pregnancy testing as a disciplinary measure to expel pregnant students from schools. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

A bamboo cane used by a teacher to cane students in a classroom lies on a desk at a secondary school in Mwanza, northwestern Tanzania. Human Rights Watch found that some teachers also beat students with wooden sticks, or with their hands or other objects. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

A girl shows the marks she sustained on her legs from regular caning by teachers in her school. She told Human Rights Watch: “We have marks in the legs, they hit our hands, they hit us on the head.” © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Frances (pseudonym), 21, struggled to pay for secondary school. She worked as a domestic worker to help pay her school fees: “From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I studied, then from 5 p.m. – 11 p.m. I worked [at her employee’s home] and I also worked over the weekends ... I got 30,000 shillings [US$14] per month … not enough to pay for school.” She failed the secondary school exam and dropped out of Form IV. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Female students who are blind, are guided down a steep and slippery hill by their teachers. They have to walk through rough terrain to get from their secondary school to their school’s hostel in Mwanza city. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Broken braille machines, formerly used by students who are blind, sit on a shelf at a secondary school’s resource center for students with disabilities in Shinyanga, a city in northern Tanzania. Many secondary schools lack the equipment, materials, or pedagogical support needed to make education accessible to all students on an equal basis. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

An unfinished science laboratory next to a classroom at a secondary school in Shinyanga region, northern Tanzania. Construction work was put on hold when school officials were no longer allowed to ask parents for financial contributions following the government’s abolition of school fees and “contributions” in December 2015. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Old female and male latrines at a secondary school in Mwanza, northeastern Tanzania. Safe and adequate toilets and sanitation facilities are a basic component of an acceptable learning environment, but in many secondary schools, toilets do not meet any basic standards. Many students interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported having to use dirty and congested pit latrines. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

“Speak English” signs found in secondary schools in Ukerewe, an island on Lake Victoria, and Mwanza, in northwestern Tanzania. Many secondary schools strictly enforce the use of English — a new language for most secondary school students, as Kiswahili is the medium of instruction in primary schools. Many students are not given adequate support to transition from Kiswahili to English, and some reported being punished for not speaking English in class. In 2014, the government adopted a policy to allow the dual use of Swahili and English as languages of instruction in secondary schools. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Tangazo la “Kuongea Kiingereza” lilipo katika shule ya sekondari Ukerewe, kisiwa kilichopo Ziwa Victoria, Mwanza, kaskazini-magharibi mwa Tanzania. Shule nyingi za sekondari zinasisitiza matumizi ya kiingereza- lugha mpya kwa wanafunzi wa sekondari kwani Kiswahili ndiyo lugha ya kufundishia shule za msingi. Wanafunzi wengi hawapewi msaada wa kutosha kuendana na mabadiliko ya kutoka Kiswahili kwenda Kiingereza na wengine wanaripoti kuwa wanapewa adhabu kwa kushindwa kuongea Kiingereza darasani. Mwaka 2014, Serikali ilipitisha sera ya kukubali matumizi ya pamoja ya Kiswahili na kiingereza kama lugha za kufundishia kwa shule za sekondari. © 2016 Elin Martínez/Human Rights Watch

Female students suffer further humiliation. Girls in one school told us that female teachers hit them on the breasts. Girls also said they suffer additional indignity when beaten while menstruating. One girl said, “They use a stick as punishment, in the bottom and back. We have to bend over like this.… During periods it’s worse…. When they beat us using the stick, they keep on hitting, sometimes our cloth [sanitary] pads come out and the bleeding stains our clothes.”

Girls also face safety challenges in schools, including sexual abuse and harassment by teachers, with little accountability. They are also forced to undergo pregnancy tests and, if found to be pregnant, are expelled from school as a warning to other girls.

Teachers justify corporal punishment by referring to the adage that if you spare the rod you spoil the child. They say it is a way to make students learn. Senior political leaders have also repeatedly encouraged corporal punishment in schools. In 2013, then-Deputy Minister for Education and Vocational Training Philipo Mulugo publicly linked the absence of corporal punishment and the decline of discipline in schools. Last March, President John Magufuli attributed his success to the beatings he received in class: “I am wondering why they stopped caning in schools,” he said. “I was also caned and that’s why I am standing here today.”

But corporal punishment, in all its forms, is violence against children and should have no place in institutions of learning. It harms children’s physical, mental and emotional health; their behavioral development; their ability to learn well; and can lead to dropping out of school.

Tanzania needs to take concrete steps to end violence against students in schools. It should abolish corporal punishment in policy and practice, including by revoking the National Education (Corporal) Punishment Regulations of 1979, and adopt a policy and regulations on positive ways to promote discipline. It should combat sexual abuse against female students by setting up confidential reporting mechanisms in schools, and ensuring that all cases are reported to appropriate enforcement authorities, including police, and that cases are duly investigated and prosecuted. It should end mandatory pregnancy testing in schools.

Schools should not be places of fear and violence. Twenty-nine countries in Africa have outlawed corporal punishment in schools, including Tanzania’s neighbors Kenya and Uganda. Taking measures to prevent teacher-on-student violence and abuse will not only ensure that Tanzania is in compliance with its international and regional human rights obligations; it will help create an environment in which children can thrive and learn.