Education CS, George Magoha, is of the opinion that bringing back corporal punishment will help restore discipline in schools.
Speaking to the media over the weekend, Magoha was quick to clarify that he was making his stand known in a personal capacity and not as the Education CS.
Responding to a question, he stated, "I will not answer you as a Cabinet Secretary. I will answer you as Magoha son of Magoha. I strongly believe that well-applied corporal punishment will instill discipline in our children."
"But you see there is the law and you people are going to twist this one upside down. There is a law which bars that one [caning]," he explained.
The former KNEC boss wondered whether the law barring caning in schools was introduced as an effect of western influence.
"In our culture, it is okay to smack a child responsibly. For me I had six of the best, six times," he recalled.
"I'm talking from my experience but as a minister, I cannot make such pronouncements without due process," the CS added.
In a gazette notice dated March 13, 2001, the then Minister in charge of Education, Kalonzo Musyoka, scrapped the sections of the law that permitted corporal punishment.
The notice was intended to clarify any doubt about the nature of punishment to be meted out on delinquent students.
Despite the fact that the Minister outlawed corporal punishment, he did not spell out the alternatives to caning.
In recent years, indiscipline among students has taken the form of outright violence where students have clobbered their teachers to death, set their colleagues on fire and damaged property worth colossal amounts of money.
