Canada l Britain
l Other countries
Canada
Like corporal punishment by parents, corporal punishment by
teachers is rooted in the historical belief that caning, whipping,
strapping and other forms of physical punishment or threats
of such punishment are essential for teaching and maintaining
discipline in schools.
The 1968 Ontario Hall-Dennis Report on Education recommended
ending legal approval of corporal punishment in schools. Since
then, an increasing awareness of its potential for harm has
led some provinces to amend their education acts to expressly
prohibit this method of discipline. In 1973, B.C. was the
first province to do so.
The Jan 30/04 Supreme Court of Canada decision on the constitutional
challenge to section 43 held that schoolteachers can no longer
use the section as a defence to assault for correcting students.
Section43, however, can still be used as a defence where teachers
use reasonable force for restraint. See Constitutional
Challenge chapter for information.
Provincial education acts
Eleven provinces/territories prohibit corporal punishment
Beginning in 1973, the following 8 provinces and 3 territories amended their education acts to ban corporal punishment. These amendments seem to apply only to public schools.
1973 B.C. School Act
1989 Nova Scotia Education Act
1990 New Brunswick Schools Act
1990 Yukon Education Act
1993 P.E.I. School Act
1995 North West Territories and Nunavut Education Act
1997 Newfoundland Schools Act
1997 Quebec Education Act
2005 Saskatchewan Education Act
2009 Ontario Education Act
Because the Supreme Court of Canada decided in 2004 that schoolteachers could not use s. 43 as a defence to corporal punishment of students, such punishment is now illegal throughout Canada. All education acts should therefore be amended to make this known as widely as possible. The education acts of Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta do not made this clear and should be amended to specifically state that corporal punishment by school teachers is prohibited. In 2005, we wrote Ministers of Education in Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba requesting this but these amendments have not been made.
In our letter to the former Ontario Minister of Education, we reminded him that in 1981, Dr. Bette Stephenson, Ontario’s Conservative Minister of Education, proposed an amendment to the Ontario Education Act that would require teachers to refrain from the use of physical force in disciplining pupils except to protect themselves or other pupils. The proposed amendment, however, was opposed by the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the Public Schools Trustees Association and was rejected by her Cabinet colleagues.
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Britain
Complete ban in 1998
Corporal punishment in state schools was banned in 1986 and in all schools in 1998. The 1998 amendment to the UK Education Act expressly allows teachers to use reasonable force to restrain students from committing an offence, causing personal injury or damage to property, or engaging in behaviour prejudicial to good order and discipline.
In introducing the 1998 ban, the Department of Education reminded teachers that the power to use reasonable force for restraint and control was not new but derived from the common law. It explained that physical contact with a child was lawful and appropriate, for example, in order to restrain children from hurting themselves or others and that the removal of the reasonable force defence to assault did not affect this.
Ban challenged by religious schools
A Christian school in Liverpool brought action in an English court on behalf of several independent religious schools to have the 1998 ban overturned. It claimed that the ban breached the freedom of conscience provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Passages from the Old Testament were cited to support the claim that corporal punishment of children is an essential part of Christian belief.
The action was dismissed by the court in November 2001 on the basis that a belief in corporal punishment for religious reasons was not a manifestation of religion and not one of the articles of the Christian faith.
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Other countries
Europe
All European countries have banned corporal punishment in schools. In Austria, it was banned as long ago as 1870.
United States
Thirty American states have banned corporal punishment in schools, the latest being Ohio in July 2009. The majority of states in which it is still legal are mainly in the southern US, particularly Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Alabama. In some cases, children are struck three or more times on the buttocks with a paddle half-an-inch thick and over two feet long. The U.S. Dept. of Education reports that black students are paddled at 2 1/2 times the rate of white students.
Other countries
There is a growing world-wide movement to end legal approval of corporal punishment in schools. As a result, the following countries have recently banned corporal punishment by legislation or judicial decision.
New Zealand
South Africa
Namibia
Zimbabwe
Kenya
Zambia
Sri Lanka
Trinidad and Tobago
Fiji
Thailand
Corporal punishment in schools is prohibited in at least 80 other countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
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