It is wrong if someone has said that a school is a child’s second home; at least in the Indian scenario they should not be considered home. The very idea, that a school is an embodiment of values stands vitiated in the light of merciless physical outbursts of principals and teachers on their often young and naive students. There is not even a single day now, when news about a student being roughed up does not hit the screen.
India has been replete with soul freezing instances of extreme corporal punishment where charges for abetting suicides have also been framed. Recently, in Virar, Mumbai, three students all of 14 years, from a boarding school decided to run after they were heartlessly thrashed a day before. Their bodies were found behind the school campus the next day. Quite similar was the Kolkata incident, where in 2010, a standard eighth student, had committed suicide after he was ruthlessly beaten by the principal and three teachers from one of city’s prominent schools. The four accused were arrested but were let to come out on bail. They were absolved of all charges and the school continues to function with the same ease. Somewhere, the ghosts of that incident have been discreetly buried.
Schools across India have failed to bring to an end this inhuman practice, where students continue to be hit for reasons as baseless as not being able to grasp a lesson. The fury that is vented on these young minds is enough to scar them for the rest of their lives. Some students are able to bear the agony and still live but there are still others who are not as resilient as their counterparts and usually end up being suicidal. Time we ensure education isn’t punitive.
India has been replete with soul freezing instances of extreme corporal punishment where charges for abetting suicides have also been framed. Recently, in Virar, Mumbai, three students all of 14 years, from a boarding school decided to run after they were heartlessly thrashed a day before. Their bodies were found behind the school campus the next day. Quite similar was the Kolkata incident, where in 2010, a standard eighth student, had committed suicide after he was ruthlessly beaten by the principal and three teachers from one of city’s prominent schools. The four accused were arrested but were let to come out on bail. They were absolved of all charges and the school continues to function with the same ease. Somewhere, the ghosts of that incident have been discreetly buried.
Schools across India have failed to bring to an end this inhuman practice, where students continue to be hit for reasons as baseless as not being able to grasp a lesson. The fury that is vented on these young minds is enough to scar them for the rest of their lives. Some students are able to bear the agony and still live but there are still others who are not as resilient as their counterparts and usually end up being suicidal. Time we ensure education isn’t punitive.