Corporal punishment, the infliction of physical pain and injury on an individual believed to have committed wrongdoing, was commonplace throughout Kenya's colonial encounter. European settlers bruised houseboys and harvesters with steel-toed boots to instill a sense of station in Kenya's racial hierarchy. Schoolteachers "broke" pupils' backs to mold their minds. African chiefs conducted forced labor to the cadence of the kiboko (whip or cane) urging young men to dig roads faster and carry goods farther. African fathers raised walking sticks to correct absent-minded herdsboys. Colonial magistrates sentenced thousands of young Africans to caning for crimes ranging from bicycle theft to breach of contract. Today, the citizens of an independent Kenya continue to wrestle with the decision to spank mischievous sons and beat restless schoolboys.
In Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, as Africans came into increasing contact with Europeans, the diversity of individuals and institutions laying claim to this form of violence expanded. Colonial governments relied on corporal punishment to broadcast their authority, often through military barracks, schools, courts, and penal institutions. Colonial courts were especially devoted to physical violence as a method of discipline and alternative to imprisonment, fines, or other forms of punishment. Courts in most British African colonies, from native courts in Northern Nigeria and Uganda to magistrate courts in Gold Coast and Kenya, sentenced offenders to corporal punishment to varying degrees. In colonies with white settlement, such as Kenya and South Africa, a cult of the cat o' nine tails formed to humiliate disobethent African chiefs, suppress resistance, and emasculate male sexuality to salve fears of black peril. Corporal punishment was a key instrument in establishing racial hierarchies. Moreover, the use of the kiboko in Kenya and sjambok in South Africa were common methods to coerce and discipline male African labor. Whether a method to punish criminal behavior, display racial superiority, or inculcate labor discipline, corporal punishment became an "essential pedagogical tool" of the colonial encounter, teaching through physical violence. Corporal punishment was not simply an instrument of the British colonial state; it was also a weapon of African parents and elders, used to define age and generational station. It separated men from boys, adults from children; it situated them on opposing sides of the kiboko and established the authority of one over the other. Fathers and elder menfolk in Kenya relied on a diverse disciplinary repertoire, which included physical violence, to correct the behavior of young men, negotiate boundaries between generations, and preserve senior authority. Yet elder patriarchal power was not hegemonic. Generations contested ideas about age, transitions from one age to the next, and fulfillment of accompanying rights and obligations. The colonial encounter further complicated these relationships, often in contradictory ways. As it entrenched elder authority, it also expanded the number of alternatives for young people to accumulate wealth and redefine maturity beyond the purview of fathers and senior kin. Colonial rule also muddied the disciplinary landscape. Although colonial rule sometimes empowered elders, it also redistributed their right to punish the young among a host of other actors. Likewise, while it freed some young people from elder surveillance, it also brought them under the watchful eyes of a wider community of disciplinarians. The right to beat a boy, once the exclusive right of African parents and elder kin, increasingly included missionaries, schoolteachers, employers, chiefs, and the colonial state. Each of these disciplinarians considered physical violence an appropriate form of punishment for young males.

interesting paper Spare the Rod, Spoil the Colony: Corporal Punishment, Colonial Violence, and Generational Authority in Kenya, 1897-1952

Hallo guys, I am sure we have people who went to starehe on this forum. Kindly share how they have managed to instill discipline without resorting to the cane. Or anyone else who might have a working and practical approach in a school set-up.