Teachers, Leave the Kids Alone!

Teacher Sensitisation for Schools as Violence-Free Zones

- "Care is fair." - "If I come late I get punished, why not the teachers?" - "Teachers are not having any right to insult the students (sic)." - "We want to spend free classes with friends, not with teachers." - "Teachers should come down to our level and explain lessons." - "They are providing us extra time to study, but we want to play instead." - "No discouragement, no suicide."

These simple but powerful graffiti by city school students during a recent workshop here conveys more than just the violent practices of corporal punishment in schools ironically called the development centres for children.

It conveys the dismal power equation, rather inequation, between students and teachers, which has perhaps existed right from the days of mythical Mahabharata, when guru Dronacharya cruelly asked a student Eklavya to cut his thumb as a punishment/fine, which would render him incapable of practicing archery, for having learnt the same secretly without the guru's permission.

And it is this inequation that an NGO here, Divya Disha, is trying to root out in association with students, teachers and the government, and create schools as violence-free zones.

"Children have been relegated to the role of decoration. They are supposed to be the "father of man." You are talking about their future, what about talking about their pathetic present?" asks Isodore Philips, director of Divya Disha.

"We complain of the recent aggression in the society, but we don't realise that students of today see and learn it in schools and translate it into the society," he adds.

There are about 3,000 schools in Hyderabad and except in some smart schools, the practice of corporal punishment is rampant. Most of these schools don't even know there's a law banning corporal punishment in elementary schools, he says.

While the law terms corporal punishment as "six cuts on the hand," schools, in the name of "spare the rod, spoil the child," are following some most inhuman punishment practices.

These include beating on knuckles with iron rods, stripping of boys, making children run or stand in the sun on the ground entire day, cleaning it, standing on the bench, getting them slapped by the opposite sex, making them sweep the classrooms. Standing like a chair, carrying the school bag on the head, holding pencil in mouth and standing, sit ups, caning and pinching, abusing and scolding, and humiliation in the assembly are some other forms of punishment etc.

However, the law itself is not clear on the code regarding punishments in schools. Rule 39 of AP Integrated Educational Rules 1965 bans corporal punishment for students of Class I to V. So, should students from V to X be beaten up?

Rules 121 and 122, which deal with discipline, say corporal punishment can't be inflicted upon in schools except in a case of moral delinquency such as deliberate lying, obscenity of a word or act, flagrant insubordination, where it will be six cuts on the hand, administered only by or under the supervision of headmaster.

It also says corporal punishment should not be inflicted on boys of classes XI and XII in recognised schools. So can girls of V to XII in recognised schools be beaten up? What about unrecognised schools? Can they beat up students irrespective of their age and gender?

Last year, the Delhi High Court banned punishment in all schools. The judgment says: "Even animals are protected against creulty, Our children surely cannot be worse off than animals."

"Is a quiet classroom a disciplined one? At what cost do you get a disciplined classroom? Who sets standards at what costs? Is beating up a mode of correction? We need a change in teaching methods, a paradigm shift in a teacher from a power center to a manager and faciliator of learning," says Isodore.

We have to change the concept taught to BEds -- that child is like a canvas and teacher needs to paint on it. Children are individuals, treat them like that, he urges.

To highlight the issue, Divya Disha had recently conducted a series of workshops with students, teachers and the Department of School Education in AP. The Department has agreed to bring in an amendment in Education Code, Isodore informs.

Now, the NGO is working out preparatory packages for a training program for teachers to orient them on children's rights and sensitise them on the issue.

The program, under the Child Rights Charter it formulated on Child Rights Convention Day in 1999, will be campaigned in 200 schools, BEd colleges and the District Institute of Education and Training.

The program, supported by Unicef, will involve upgradation of teaching modes and skills by introducing teachers to positive disciplinary methods and cooperative group learning methods.

The teachers will be sensitised to learners' psychology and behavior. The NGO will also form Child Rights Clubs in schools as part of the program, he adds.