Mr Gove disclosed he was beaten twice while at pupil Robert Gordons College, an all-boys secondary school, in Aberdeen.
Speaking at a meeting organised by The Daily Telegraph on the fringe of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Mr Gove was asked by Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne if he was “thrashed” there.
Mr Gove replied: “Yes I was. In Scotland they tended not to use the cane, they had something called the ‘tawse’, a leather belt.
“I was belted on my hand a couple of times mainly for cheek, insubordination and sheer rudeness towards the staff.”
Pressed as to whether it “did him good”, Mr Gove declined to answer, noting that corporal punishment was banned in state schools in 1986, after after he left school.
He said he was “a cheeky beggar at school and probably needed to be taken in hand”.
He added: “But I don’t think you should hit children myself. There are lots of things that we can look back on with nostalgia. But on the whole we are probably definitely better off not hitting children.”
Mr Gove also lamented declining standards in the classroom, referring concern from the actress Emma Thompson who said last week she was appalled to hear children at her old school saying saying “innit”, “whatever” and “do I look bovvered”.
He said: “Well I am 'bovvered' that our English language, the language that Shakespeare used, is not being passed on to the next generation so that they can use it in all its beauty and clarity.
He said pupils should read the works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy to improve their written English: “They should be sorts of things that children should be reading. If you want to construct proper sentences, you should read proper authors.”
Mr Gove declined to “single out” which authors currently on the national curriculum which should be dropped by schools.
Later in the hour-long meeting, Mr Gove suggested that he wanted more former army officers should be able to teach in schools to help instil discipline among pupils.
He was keen for more veterans to enter teaching as a “mid-career change”. He said: “I am particularly keen to secure more retired and non-commissioned and warrant officers and army officers, to get them into teaching.
“They have been at the frontline of constructing young men and women in the virtues of self-discipline and I am doing everything I can to get more of them into teaching.”
--By Christopher Hope,05 Oct 2010