What vision of education is reflected in the recent debate in Syria’s People’s Assembly over corporal punishment in schools and the so-called “feminization of education”? In a country where one trending controversy quickly gives way to another, a single parliamentary session was enough to expose how some members misunderstand education, discipline, and how to raise a socially well-adjusted generation.

During a hearing with Education Minister Mohammad Abdul Rahman Turko last Monday, MP Ahmad al-Sama’il, known as “Abu al-Harith,” linked the ban on corporal punishment to the erosion of teachers’ authority. He argued that hitting children is a “Prophetic tradition” and that students should be disciplined through “regulated beating,” rather than severe physical punishment.

His colleague, MP Ibrahim al-Zoubi, went further, blaming what he described as the “feminization of education” for causing male students to lose their sense of authority.

The education minister responded immediately: “Beating tames; it does not educate. It reflects the failure of the teacher and the failure of the education system.”

The Ministry of Education later recirculated directives prohibiting the physical punishment or humiliation of students, warning that violators would be held accountable.

Between “Hair-Pulling and the Cane”

The recent remarks revived memories among generations of Syrians of the physical punishment they endured as children, prompting stories and recollections of what is commonly described as “school violence” to spread across social media.

Under Assad’s rule, generations of Syrians experienced various forms of physical punishment at school. Despite Ministry of Education directives prohibiting such practices, the Committee on the Rights of the Child noted at the time that no comprehensive legislative ban on corporal punishment existed.

Standing on one foot beside the trash bin and holding out our hands to be struck with a cane was routine in our childhood. At other times, the teacher would make us turn our hands over so the blows landed on our backs, where they hurt more.

There were also more elaborate forms of punishment, each with its own methods and techniques, which we will not go into here. One of them, for example, was when our first-grade teacher yanked my friend up by her hair until her tiny feet nearly lifted off the ground.

Years later, my friend told me that when her mother washed her hair that day, she cried from the intense pain in her scalp. 

I remember a teacher brutally beating a student. It was the first time I had ever seen a child being kicked in the stomach.

Even now, I wonder: What did that child learn from being kicked in the stomach? Did he learn to help others? Did he learn that failure is not the end, that he could try again and succeed? Did he learn how to write a proper sentence?

“The Flesh Is Yours, the Bones Are Ours”

But perhaps the harshest part of all was that children could not tell their families what they were being subjected to, because physical punishment was socially accepted and seen as a natural consequence of a child failing to follow the rules.

Parents often repeated the saying, “The flesh is yours, the bones are ours.” In other words: you may take the most valuable part of this child, the flesh, and leave us only the bones. It is a saying that reflects how deeply a culture of violence was embedded in individuals, families, and society.

Because the adults and those in positions of responsibility at the time failed to grasp the severity of what children were being subjected to, we spent years dealing with the lasting effects of the violence and terror we experienced as children. We had believed school was a place for learning and play, only to be confronted with a reality we struggled to comprehend.

Every move became calculated, and every mistake, no matter how small, filled us with fear. Instead of thinking and learning, we were afraid that if we made a mistake, we would be beaten.

A cane cannot shape a child’s character or teach them concepts such as understanding and dialogue, or even the meaning of consequences and rewards. In education, neither should be tied to physical punishment or psychological abuse. The aim is to raise a generation that understands the consequences of its actions and avoids wrongdoing not out of fear of punishment, but out of an awareness of those consequences. 

Everything worked together to make physical violence seem like a normal part of raising children. Today, decades later, officials in positions of power still believe the same.

According to UNICEF statistics from 2006, the same period discussed above, around 89 percent of children in Syria were subjected to violent forms of discipline.

“Authority” or Proper Education?

But does hitting children actually make them more disciplined?

A study examining the outcomes of corporal punishment in schools, based on a large sample of around 67,000 children, found that school corporal punishment was associated with higher levels of externalizing behaviors, such as aggression, as well as greater internalizing problems, including anxiety and social withdrawal.

The association of good education with strictness, and with what the MP called “authority,” is nothing new. But why is good education associated with strictness, strictness with masculinity, and masculinity with strength? As though education cannot exist without fear.

Al-Zoubi’s argument can be summed up in his surprise at the sheer number of female teachers and educators, while male students, in his view, specifically need a man to instill authority and strength in them.

The real issue is not why female teachers vastly outnumber their male counterparts. According to the latest UNESCO UIS data published by the World Bank, women accounted for around 90.5 percent of primary school teachers in Syria in 2024, compared with just 9.5 percent who were men.

That is a legitimate question, and its economic and social causes may well deserve investigation. The problem arises when professional statistics become an educational theory in the People’s Assembly, and when an MP who represents the public and helps make laws believes a child needs a stricter male figure to develop a strong character.

At the same time, research to date provides no conclusive evidence that being taught by women negatively affects male students’ academic achievement or development. A 2022 Saudi study, one of the few Arab studies on the subject, compared 182 students in the early primary grades. It found that male students in early-childhood schools taught by female teachers scored higher in social skills (85 percent) than students in primary schools taught by male teachers (76.6 percent).

This study alone cannot establish that female teachers are better than male teachers. But, at the very least, it provides no tangible evidence that being taught by women harms boys’ social skills.

Just one day after theories about corporal punishment and education were aired in Syria’s People’s Assembly, videos emerged documenting children being beaten. The striking timing raises a question: Is this simply an old form of violence, or violence waiting to be applauded?