Child Series - Student safety
I remember being scared of many of my teachers. They would hit students. I remember that our craft teacher was extremely strict. If we misbehaved or were caught talking or did anything to upset her, she would take a wooden ruler, ask us to put out our hand, close our fists to and make our knuckles visible, which she would hit our knuckles with the ruler, so we were very scared of her.
I also remember an English teacher who would remove the pants of boys and make them parade through the school in case of any mis-behaviour. I remember the boys in my class screaming and crying and begging the teacher not to remove their pants. This is a problem at so many levels. First, you are shaming the child and humiliating him. Second, you are sexualising the problem.Third, you are scarring the children emotionally and traumatising them for years to come.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which has come into force with effect from 1 April 2010, prohibits 'physical punishment' and 'mental harassment' under Section 17(1) and makes it a punishable offence under Section 17(2). In 2018, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines to schools on how to prevent and address corporal punishment. In this document, it was mentioned that "A study ‘Child Abuse in India – 2007’, by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, found that 69% of children reported having been physically abused."
Student safety on excursions was another issue. I remember an incident of one such excursion. I had a maternal cousin whose father worked outside India. On one occasion, in Grade Six or Seven, I was given a 'sweater' that was pale yellow and soft and 'imported'. I loved it. It was unlike anything I had ever owned.
The school had planned a picnic to Neral, 75 kms from Mumbai, a scenic place which is the gateway to Matheran, a popular hill station. I was excited to show off my 'new imported' sweater so I wore it in the morning during the trip. We reached fine and had fun at Neral. On the way back, I dont remember exactly, but I think we came to Dadar raliway station and had to take a train to Andheri, where our school was. Instructions were 'Train is approaching, get into the train'. It was five or six in the evening...peak hours. The train was very crowded. I did not know then that it was a fast train and would be terribly crowded. My school was walking distance from my house and I was not used to travelling by train. I was scared to be left behind and in those days, there was no concept of mobile phones and we did not have a landline at home.
So I struggled and forcefully pushed my way into the ladies compartment. I had a bag on my shoulder with my lunch box, water bottle and my new sweater which I removed as it was very hot. I could not see which of my classmates had got in and which of my teachers had. Then came the station Bandra, where more people got in and pushed me even further to the back. I kept asking the swarm of people who surrounded me as to when would Andheri station come and they said that it was the next stop. At Andheri, there was a sea of people waiting to get in and a sea of people trying to get out. I pushed the people in front of me with all my might to get out, but I was one of the last few and on both sides of me, the incoming people were pushing me in order to get in. I finally got down, but in this chaos, the strap of my bag was on my shoulder, but the bag was trapped between the people who had got into train. The train started moving and I was pulling frantically at the strap, wanting to pull my bag out. It had my new sweater!! I ran on the platform with the train and kept pulling at the strap, till people on the platform started shouting and screaming at me to let the bag go. "Chod do, mar jaaoge", they said... "let go, else you will die". I reluctantly let go of the bag.
At Andheri station, I waited with some classmates who had got in the same train. The others came in the next train, They all told us "Why did you get into the crowded train? The next one wasn't crowded". But these instructions were not made clear earlier.
Now when I reflect, I am horrified that students were asked to get into trains on their own. What if I had fallen down between the train and the platform onto the tracks when trying to get into the crowded train? What if I couldn't get down at Andheri because of the crowd? How could safety have been such a low priority?
The Government of India has issued 'Guidelines for the safety and security for children' in 2014, which under section 4.1.6 covers 'Excursions and Trips' where it states "the onus for the safety and of the students is totally on school authorities". But there are still questions about student safety raised by a TOI article in 2016 that covered the deaths of 14 Pune students who went on a school picnic to Murud beach. Many schools now do a 'Risk Assessment' for trips and the teacher-to-student ratio is getting better, but there should be more awareness about risk assessment and what kind of risks students can face on trips.
Image Credit: Mid day paper: Choudhari, Prasun. “As Mumbai Suffocates in Monday Crush, Western Railway Rolls Back Train Cuts.” Mid-Day, 10 May 2024.
Right of children to free and compulsory education:
Guidelines to schools on how to prevent and address corporal punishment.
Guidelines for the safety and security for children: https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/Guidelines_oct.pdf
TOI Article:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/tragedy-at-murud-beach-14-pune-students-on-a-picnic-drown-in-sea/articleshow/50807743.cms
#relationships,#new-teachers,#behaviour,#school,#learning,#teacher-student-relationships,#praise #teaching,#students,#learning support,#motivation,#trauma,#consent,#punishment, #abuse
