That is just a hint of what the average west African faced growing up as a student. Yes, flogged. Flogged like a cattle. The big Idea behind it, that the student would not repeat the mistake.
For Gods sake! Why? Who brought this disciplinary method to the nursery to secondary schools in west africa? I was only in my third year in kindergarten when I was first flogged the hell out by my aunty (Nigerian title for a female teacher. The male teacher is an uncle). I was probably just between 4 to 5 years old then and that's the earliest I can remember. Why was i beaten, because I did not do my home work. I vividly remember how I was first brought out, then forced to stretch out my hands with an open palm and flogged 5 strokes of the cain.
Children get flogged for funny reasons. These reasons I deem funny because when I look back, I really can not see how most of these reasons where my faults. Reasons like, coming late to school when I was just too little to leave home alone and my parents are the ones that would drop me by the school gate. A student would be beaten up every day If her parents do not buy a particular textbook until they buy it. A student would be flogged when his parents do not attend the schools monthly PTA meeting. How are these the children's fault really?
For those reading this, and still thinking maybe this is just an exaggerated issue, I have seen not once nor ten times, where a student is rushed to the health center after flogging and punishment. I was just in my first year in junior high when i was diagnosed of hernia. I underwent a surgical procedure, and I returned to school less than a month later. It was not up to another month, when I was severely beaten up and kicked at my stomach repeatedly by a teacher simply because I was roaming and running about with my peer after school hours instead of waiting outside for my parents. That day, my dad came to meet me crying and it was hell in the principals office the next day, yet all that went down was the teachers kneels begging and it ended just like that.
An average child in a government school is flogged twice a day. If he or she has strict or frustrated parents or guardian, make it double the dose. This is child abuse, whether the children are now used to it or not, whether it is a norm in our society it is still child abuse in the highest order and I am not happy to see this mode of discipline continue. Children are not cows. Children don't need to learn the hard way. At least, not this kind of hard way. The government has neglected this because it is more practiced in their schools. I have just decided to write about the flogging. What about the punishments most times after the flogging.
Punishments so gruesome students collapse at it and it's all for our good they would say.
All I hope for is change, still it seems there may never be because the issue is not taken as serious as I am taking it. Even fellow victims of this inhumane act become veterans in the field someday. Thank you.
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