Due to an apparent administrative delay, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development did not present an amendment bill to the Education and Training Act during the last session of parliament, as previously indicated by a minister. Nonetheless, it is certain that the bill is in progress, and by the end of this year, the longstanding practice of corporal punishment in schools will be abolished.

Long before the arrival of missionaries and the establishment of their schools, corporal punishment was common practice, especially among the ethnically Tswana, in initiation schools. Missionaries documented instances of harsh and often unprovoked beatings of initiates at bogwera, the male initiation school. These beatings, when unprovoked, were not intended as punishment but rather as a means to toughen the initiates. As recently as the early 1970s, part of the graduation ceremony for Bakgatla young men returning from initiation in the bush involved lining up and receiving canings on their bare backs. It was considered a point of pride for graduates to endure this caning without flinching or uttering a sound of pain.