Video clips: Tanzania: real school canings, page 1

Tanzania - School caning: Three clips.

CLIP 1 OF 3

Duration: 30 seconds
Date: 2014

Here, a schoolmistress is seen on a verandah caning some quite young students while in the middle of a conversation with somebody out of shot. As the clip starts, she has just caned a girl. Then a boy takes up a "push-up" position but she does not get started on him for a while, so he waits patiently. When the punishment comes it is quite a harsh one, of 8 sharp strokes on the seat of his shorts with a thin switch (several more of which she is holding in her other hand). This is twice the theoretical legal maximum number of strokes in Tanzanian schools.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

CLIP 2 OF 3

Duration: 40 seconds
Date: 2014

A headmaster is seen caning, first, a young boy on the seat of his trousers as he lies on the ground, and secondly a girl on her hands. This all takes place out of doors. The implement is not a proper rattan cane but an unsuitable rough stick, as often seems to be the case in Africa. We don't know why these students are being punished, but it is hard to imagine how their offence can have justified this degree of ruthless severity, verging on the inhumane. Another stupid educator giving corporal punishment a bad name.

  This short clip is extracted from a 53-minute documentary, High Hopes and Horror: A Secondary School in Tanzania, which is to be found at several places on the web (Google that exact title if you want to view it).

HERE IS THE CLIP:

CLIP 3 OF 3

Duration: 20 seconds
Date: 2014

A much more reasonable-looking, English-style disciplinary session is under way here. Somewhat distant from the camera, in what is presumably the school yard, we see two boys aged perhaps 15 or 16 bending over for three moderate strokes of the cane. We can clearly hear these on the soundtrack.

  Just as the clip starts, another boy is walking away, having clearly just been caned. He is rubbing his stinging buttocks and then undoes his trousers momentarily to tuck his shirt in at the back. It looks like a fairly routine punishment in a matter-of-fact atmosphere. Other students are around but appear to be taking little notice.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

See also: Video - Tanzania school CP, page 2