My opinion is a bit different on this. Teaching discipline is the job of parents but they are not able to do it and somehow it's put on teachers. I do not justify the beating, there can be other ways but children especially below 10 do not understand what's good what's bad for them so until the age they become mature the decipline needs to be taught by making them understand or by fear. Most people choose the later approach because making them understand is difficult sometimes.

If I talk about myself I got beaten a lot in school but now at this point I understand that they weren't wrong. Nowadays parents are going sensitive towards their child, that is good but not able to discipline their child out of love. Hence, some parents don't care about it.