epaperarchive.timesofindia.com
NEW DELHI, INDIA, August 22, 2005: After the New Delhi High Court ruled that the provision for corporal punishment be removed from the Delhi School Education Act in December 2000, circulars were sent to all the principals of New Delhi’s government schools informing them of the change and asking them to implement the new law in their jurisdictions. The High Court wanted to comply with “National Policy (on Education adopted by the Centre in 1992), in tune with the International Convention on Children that adopted a child centric approach where corporal punishment has no place in the system of education.”
At least in theory the law was passed but the implementation of the law is nowhere near acceptable. The news release explains, “On the face of it, there are enough legal checks in place, yet everyday cases of boxing ears or slapping a child hardly ever gets reported. That is, not unless there are extreme repercussions like, when some years ago, a class X student of a Chennai school committed suicide after his teacher slapped him before his class.”
Kusum Jain, president of the Parents’ Forum for Meaningful Education, adds, “Almost five years after the HC ruling that awareness about the fact that corporal punishment is unconstitutional remains abysmally low, not just among the general public but even among education officials. Two years after the ruling came, Delhi government wrote off their responsibility of implementing it simply by issuing a circular. Nothing was done after that for sensitizing teachers, which is so essential.”
Supreme Court advocate P S Sharda says, “Under the Delhi School Education Act, a teacher who has inflicted corporal punishment on a child is liable to be suspended. If the victim/family lodges a FIR with the police, the teacher can also be charged under section 325 and 326 IPC for causing injury, section 355 for dishonoring the dignity of a person and section 352 for criminal force and assault. A child can also complain to any court of law and due note will be taken.”
The question still remains as to why so little is being done to protect children in the school system. CRPF School principal Suraj Prakash says, “In government schools there is an estimated 20% shortage of teachers and the teacher-student ratio in some schools hovers around an impossible 80:1 or more. This is not to condone corporal punishment, but the lack of facilities often causes enough frustration in teachers to vent it out on students. In this age of rage and impatience, there is an urgent need to counsel and educate educators to ensure healthy growth of the child.”
All this is probably little consolation for two recently reported cases of abuse that this article sites, “When 6-year-old Himanshu Verma, a student of class III at Rajputana Rifles Heroes Memorial Senior Secondary School, went back to school after a long Independence Day weekend, he had no idea that he would return with a broken arm. Severely beaten by his teacher for ‘not listening’ to her, the child ended up with a large plaster on his right forearm or the case of four-year-old Anas, a student of Greenfield Convent School in Ghaziabad, committed the error of dozing off in class. He woke up in pain when his class teacher stabbed a pencil into his head. The school reportedly did not even bother to provide first-aid. The piece of lead that had penetrated his head was removed much later in a private clinic where his parents took their wailing child.”
Even though the problem is extensive throughout New Delhi, credit must go to the schools and their principals that are implementing discipline in a non-corporal way. For example, the principal of Springdales (Pusa Road) Ameeta Wattal is against even using the term punishment. Wattal says, “There can be remedial work or detention or as in our school, the student can do some sort of kar seva to prove himself a responsible member of the community, but not only is there no question of touching the child, but even psychological torture is unacceptable. It is very common for teachers to label kids as ‘foolish’ or ‘silly’ or with similar adjective, without being conscious of the damage he/she is doing to the child’s self-esteem.”