At least 53 per cent of Ugandans believe it is correct to subject children to corporal punishment as a form of imparting morals in them.

According to the Uganda Demographic Health Survey Report 2022, there appears very little difference in these beliefs in the country, with prevalence in urban areas standing at 51 per cent while in rural areas it stands at 54 per cent.

The report was released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) working in conjunction with the Ministry of Health on March 7, 2024, at Mestil Hotel in Kampala.

The report which also sampled children revealed psychological aggression as a form of disciplining children at 66 percent.

Any physical punishment stood at 61 percent while severe physical punishment was 17 percent.

Punishment by any violent discipline method was recorded at 76 per cent and only the nonviolent method was the lowest at 12 per cent.

Any violent discipline method stood at 76 per cent for both girls and boys and nonviolent discipline stood at 12 per cent for both genders.

Corporal punishment in Uganda is illegal, yet 75% of children report being beaten in class, according to a recent national survey on violence against education done by Save the Children.

The government said recently it plans to roll out a national training programme for all teachers in Uganda to help sway behavioural change against corporal punishment in the country.

The training is going to start at a total of 326 schools before being rolled out to the rest of the country under the Uganda Secondary Education Expansion Project (USEEP).

Stephen Ojangole, the deputy coordinator of USEEP said recently this will ensure the protection of children based on the Amended Children’s Act 2016 and National Gender-Based Violence Policy 2017.

Negative impact

According to Save the Children, corporal punishment at school has a hugely negative impact on learning.

It says the punishment makes children stay away from school, adding that in one of its past reports it was revealed that one in four children in Uganda said they missed school in the past year due to experiencing physical violence.

This, it said, was a major reason why about 34 per cent of children drop out of school.

It said this form of punishment makes children less likely to learn and are often likely to present with lower IQ, smaller vocabularies, lower cognitive development, poor self-esteem, lack of confidence and poorer exam results than those who attend violence-free classes.