Corporal Punishment: The brutal face of Botswana's authoritarian schools

Corporal punishment is part of the penal system in Botswana, however, in schools the regulations governing its use are honoured more in breach than observance. This article uses qualitative research methods to explore the prevalence of caning in the teaching methods of seven new teachers, neophytes, in five junior secondary schools. The neophytes' espoused and enacted beliefs about caning are examined in the context of socialisation at their homes, during their own schooling, at colleges of education and their new workplaces. Contrary to the teachers' beliefs that caning is inherent in 'African culture', this article argues that it is part of a historically embedded cycle of authoritarian coping strategies of teaching, from schools to colleges of education and back to schools, bequeathed to the country by colonialism.