The article on Wikipedia describes the current situation on application of corporal punishments in schools (caning or striking a student a given number of times) across the world.
Interestingly Russia and China banned it for decades since it is against the communist philosophy. Several studies have shown that corporal punishment is not as effective as other positive means of managing student behavior. At the moment a number of countries across the world have banned it.
Much of it was originated by the British in 19th and 20th century. They have themselves abolished corporal punishment in schools now; but a lot of developing countries in the English speaking world including our very own India are still stuck in a time warp. When a Soviet school principal visited a British school in 1960's, he was shocked to see the instances of caning. He said, caning is degrading to the student and even more to the staff administering it to the student.
I would say that caning is pretty much a form of violence. And I would quote Isaac Asimov here "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
I can now correlate why there is never a caning instance in all the Harry Potter novels. At most you see students being called for detention which is much more effective technique though it consumes extra time from both the student and the teacher. I am ignoring the methods used by Dolores Umbrige who was more of a vamp anyway.
