Macphelane Ejah, the executive director of the International Training Research and Advocacy Project (INTRAP), said banning corporal punishment in schools will be counterproductive.

Mr Ejah said this in an interview in Calabar on Thursday while reacting to the ban on flogging by the Lagos State government.

He said the policy will spike recalcitrant behaviour in Lagos in the next five years.

Recently, the commissioner for basic and secondary education, Jamiu Alli-Balogun, affirmed the ban, arguing that counselling should be the major corrective measure for student misbehaviour.

He said, “Flogging may lead to potential injuries or more severe consequences” and that the state government advocated “positive reinforcement strategies and minor corrective actions.”

Mr Ejah contended that corporal punishment, such as flogging, should remain in schools and “If there are incidents where teachers misuse their position, and there are injuries, we should not use that to generalise for every teacher but look around to find out what is wrong.

“At home, parents flog and punish their children, not to maim them but correct them. This should be the same way the teacher disciplines the child.

“We should not just wake up and make decisions without facts and data on whether flogging kills children.”

He said counselling is good, but “proposing it in place of corporal punishment means the officials of the Lagos State government did not understand the reality on the ground.”

He said that in most schools in the country, the type of counselling they know is largely career counselling; “what of attitudinal and behavioural counselling?”

“The Lagos State government got it wrong with the policy,” he said.

Mr Ejah said, “As a fully grown man, I had to go back to my secondary school to thank my principal for flogging me because it helped to reshape me.

“But today, we have leaders who just want to borrow Western culture without considering its suitability to ours.”

Also, a professor of microbiology from the University of Calabar, Ayodeji Owolabi, said, “If there is no effective disciplinary measure, the tendency is that children would grow up lawless.”

Mr Owolabi said corporal punishment should be carefully carried out, not to inflict harm or be taken to the extreme. The idea is to correct the child, not to inflict injuries.

“I have no problem with counselling a child, but there is a need for discipline,” he said. “Corporal punishment, like flogging, should not be banned; it should rather be done in love and moderation.”

(NAN)