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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Rights council wants scolding ban in schools by Ananya Sengupta

Teachers, forget the word scold if you want to steer clear of trouble — or even jail.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has said no teacher can discriminate or mentally abuse a child based on his/her physical disability, caste, colour, gender or religion.

Its new guidelines, which have to be ratified by the human resource development ministry, also forbid teachers from using sarcasm, humiliating adjectives, ridicule based on a child’s health status or family background, calling names and shaming the child.

Those found guilty can not only be sacked but jailed under a range of sections like 305 (abetment of suicide), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 326 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons) and 352 (assault or use of criminal force).

NCPCR chairperson Shanta Sinha said the guidelines followed “reports of large-scale abuse of students in schools”.

The guidelines, if accepted, will virtually take away the right of teachers to raise their voice at students in class.

What the guidelines have done is broadened the term corporal punishment to include mental harassment and discrimination. Sinha said such a move was needed because children were “much more sensitive” now.

“After reports of large-scale abuse of students in schools, it became essential that the NCPCR took up the project of formulating new guidelines for corporal punishment as the present definition wasn’t adequate since it only talked about physical abuse. When we did a survey on this, we found that 81 per cent of students said they were subjects of verbal abuse by teachers,” she said.

As of now, there is no definition of corporal punishment except a provision under the existing Right to Education Act, 2009, that says teachers can be jailed for up to a year or fined Rs 50,000 or both if they are found guilty of physically assaulting a child.

Asked about the new guidelines, a teacher at a Delhi private school said they would make it “very difficult to discipline” a child. “There is a chance they will be exploited by children and their parents and the educator will suffer. I am not saying that a child should be hit or abused, but to say that you can’t even scold the child is a bit too much.”

The guidelines have defined corporal punishment under three heads: physical punishment, mental harassment and discrimination. For example, no teacher can slap, cane or cause any discomfort to a child; students cannot be detained in school or made to kneel or assume any such posture of humiliation; or told to clean toilets, based on their caste, or make tea, based on their gender.

According to a survey that led to the recommendations, children are punished mostly for reasons such as not doing homework, asking too many questions to teachers, talking too much or spending too much time in toilets.

At least 81 per cent students said teachers used derisive adjectives against them, 40 per cent said they were called animal-based names, 75 per cent said they were caned regularly and 57 per cent said their ears were boxed. Almost 18 per cent said they were denied permission to go to the toilet as punishment. Some said they were pinched, caned and even given electric shocks by teachers.

The guidelines say schoolteachers have to give a written undertaking that they would not engage in any action that could be construed as amounting to physical punishment, mental harassment or discrimination. Schools can be denied recognition or affiliation if they are found to have not adhered to the norms.

Kishore Singh, the UN special rapporteur on education, said he hoped the guidelines would go a long way in ending corporal punishment, which he described as an “affront to a child’s human dignity”.