Discipline in the educational milieu is a contemporary issue of national and international interest. Cameroon is not left out in the national picture of handling the problem of discipline in the educational sector. In a bid to implement appropriate disciplinary measures in schools, the government of Cameroon has put in place some procedures to guarantee the physical and moral integrity of students in the educational system. These, include among others, the substitution of corporal punishment with counseling in schools. However, this decision has in a long and short run been said to jeopardize the morals and lives of the teachers and students and in effect the future of Cameroon. In this paper, we seek to investigate the constraints or enhancements of the abolition of corporal punishment on the behaviors of students in secondary schools in Cameroon; the root causes of school disciplinary problems, the behavioral challenges teachers face in class, the effectiveness of disciplinary reasoning and proposals from school administrators on better disciplinary strategies to be implemented in secondary schools. The study was limited to Buea in the South West Region of Cameroon and a descriptive survey in which both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in analyzing the data. The sample included a total of 155 respondents: 20 counselors, 15 administrators, 20 discipline masters and 100 teachers. Open and closed ended questionnaires were used as tools for data collection. Findings suggested that: the abolition of corporal punishment alongside other factors such as an un-conducive school environment was responsible for highly noticeable deviant behaviors such as truancy, delinquency and recalcitrance marked with insults from students on teachers and administrators who try to discipline them. The idea of counseling is highly welcomed by the teachers and administrators but corporal punishment will better do the trick especially in the African context. The abolition of corporal punishment is therefore a constraint on students’ behavior. The study strongly suggests that corporal punishment should be reinstated but should be carefully administered.
Corporal punishment, discipline, secondary schools, constraint, enhancement, appropriate behaviors
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