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Maintaining discipline is a critical aspect of effective teaching and learning in South African secondary schools. Despite being legally abolished, corporal punishment continues to be used, raising concerns about teacher misconduct and learner well-being. This study explores the perspectives of school management teams (SMTs) on the continued use of corporal punishment. Employing a qualitative approach within an interpretative paradigm, data were collected through interviews with one principal and two deputy principals from two schools. Findings highlight significant challenges associated with corporal punishment, including learner trauma, increased bullying, declining academic performance, and absenteeism. The study recommends that schools adopt alternative disciplinary strategies while actively engaging parents in supporting teachers’ professional development on managing learner behaviour, thereby balancing discipline with learners’ rights.

The aim of this study was to investigate educator’s perceptions of how learners’ rights to safety affect disciplinary procedures in secondary schools in the Umbumbulu Circuit of KwaZulu-Natal. The paper adopted a qualitative approach, where semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 10 purposively selected educators. The thematic analysis technique was employed to analyse the data. The main findings of the study indicated that educators had their own perceptions of how learners’ rights to safety affect the way they attend to disciplinary issues when a learner has transgressed. The educators’ perceptions of learners’ rights to safety affect disciplinary procedures for many reasons, including poor understanding of relevant education laws and policies. The results also showed that teachers think that the legislation guiding teaching and learning, as well as disciplinary procedures, are marred with contradictions, which make discipline management not only difficult, but also exposes both the learners and the educators to unsafe environments. The study also indicated that the teachers are sensitive to learners’ rights to safety, resulting in restricted attention to learners who are guilty of an offence in the school. In light of these findings, it was recommended that there should be a mandatory continuous in-service workshop for the educators, on how learner discipline can be maintained.