Dr D has stated he feels boys respond well to CP, that it can be a beneficial tool as an option. That might be so, but if caning was automatically in place in every boys’ school via the few, it was always to become an option of choice, and more widely used, traditions die hard.
There are plenty of schools where this didn’t happen. It’s not inevitable and it can and should be avoided.
If boys’ schools had adopted a non cane policy in similar numbers as girls’ schools did, it may have shown boys, just as responsive to other forms of punishment similar to girls’ schools where the cane was absent. Co-ed schools using CP might have drawn on a positive comparison for boys, reducing number of canings for boys significantly in number to those received by girls.