ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the rights of schoolchildren. Education may be defined as the systematic instruction, schooling or training given to a child in preparation for life. It is unlawful for a school when providing education facilities for its pupils to discriminate against them either on the grounds of race or sex. The central foundation of the Act is the concept of special educational needs. Financial constraints could thus be used to reduce the legitimate expectations of a child with special educational needs. The traditional view in English law was that a teacher was entitled to inflict corporal punishment on a child, whether by use of the cane or other means, provided the punishment inflicted was reasonable. Disciplinary powers such as these are likely to come to the fore with the creeping abolition of corporal punishment. There is already evidence that teachers are beginning to "black" allegedly violent pupils.
