Rescind ban on punishment at schools - union

Harare - A teachers union in Zimbabwe on Friday said it wanted President Robert Mugabe to rescind a ban on corporal punishment because schools risked turning into "jungles."

"We're receiving reports from our members in schools that cases of indiscipline are on the rise," said Raymond Majongwe, the secretary general of the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) in a letter to the 90-year-old president.

"We're convinced the outright removal of corporal punishment from our schools will definitely turn our schools into jungles with no master or authority," he said.

Zimbabwe's new constitution, adopted in 2013, bans corporal punishment.

Earlier this month the High Court said corporal punishment meted out by courts to juvenile offenders was also no longer allowed.

Majongwe said in his letter: "We don't support the battering of learners but we're saying keeping corporal punishment hanging in schools, at times without even applying it, has helped to maintain some measure of discipline."

In 2005, a high school pupil from Seke, just outside Zimbabwe's capital Harare, collapsed and died when he was beaten by a headmaster for misbehaving.