Singapore's education minister has confirmed that teachers are permitted to use caning as a disciplinary measure against unruly students in certain circumstances, including against children as young as nine years old.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Education Minister Desmond Lee addressed questions surrounding new anti-bullying measures announced on April 15, including concerns about the mental health impact of corporal punishment on young children.
"Our schools use caning as a disciplinary measure if all the other measures are inadequate, given the gravity of the misconduct," Lee told lawmakers. "They follow strict protocols to ensure safety for the student. For instance, caning must be approved by the principal and administered only by authorised teachers."
The new framework is set to be rolled out across Singaporean schools from 2027. Lee said schools would weigh factors including the maturity of the student and whether caning would help the student understand the seriousness of their actions.
"Schools exercise discretion on whether to use caning as a disciplinary consequence after assessing the circumstances of the offense committed," he said. Lee further argued that the approach is grounded in research showing that children learn to make better choices when clear boundaries are enforced through firm, meaningful consequences.
Guidelines published on the Ministry of Education website specify that only male students may be punished with the cane, and only for serious offences as a last resort.
The announcement comes as corporal punishment in schools has grown increasingly rare across much of the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that between a quarter and half of all children globally experience corporal punishment in schools and has called for an end to the practice.
"The consequences of child corporal punishment can last a lifetime and undermine physical and mental health, education, and social and occupational functioning," WHO stated in a report published in August 2025. "There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that child corporal punishment carries multiple risks of harm and has no benefits for children, parents, or societies."
Singapore, a wealthy and highly developed financial hub in Southeast Asia, is widely recognised for its strict legal system. The city-state's enforcement of its laws against foreign nationals has previously drawn international attention.
One of the most prominent such cases occurred in 1993, when American Michael Fay, then 18, was arrested for possession of stolen property and vandalising several cars with spray paint. He was sentenced to four months in prison and six strokes of the cane. Following an international outcry and personal intervention by then-US President Bill Clinton, the sentence was reduced to four strokes — but Singapore carried out the caning regardless, briefly straining relations between Washington and Singapore.
More recently, a French teenager was charged in late April with two offences that could result in up to two years in prison after he allegedly licked a straw inside an orange juice vending machine and returned it to the dispenser.
