Open the Gates of Schools Let Some Air of Love Pass in

These are painful days for school education scene in India. The heat of Delhi is taking its toll and bringing out in open the worst frustrations and neglect on the part of teachers and schools in the form of casualities of students.

A girl died just a week back in a Government school. Her crime was she was poor. Probably she had nobody to teach her English alphabet at home. The teacher it is said got frustrated. She punished the girl who was perhaps ill nourished, suffering from some diseases or perhaps not ( a long enquiry will only tell whom to blame). But the fact remains that an 11 years old girl’s life was cut short. Her last hours must not have had any pleasant memories of her school. What a dark day for parents who may be now wishing that they should have never gone for the slogans of Education for all ( Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan). Even if the girl did not die of the punishment, still why have we to severely punish children.

Now a days teachers in Municipality schools are no longer so ill paid. There are several other professions where there is no job security, hours are much longer, no boon of long summer and autumn holidays and yet people work without throwing their frustrations on others. If teachers are so unhappy; they have no love for their profession and no love for children, it is best that a filtering process is established of attitudinal tests to remove such teachers from the schools. We hear from the Ministry and Government the rules against punishment of this nature but are these rules strictly followed. How many teachers in India have been so far punished for physically abusing their students?

After the death of a poor girl in an ill equipped Government school now we have a young girl in one of the swanky schools of a posh area in Delhi die in utterly deplorable circumstances. Once again there is a need for psychological tests for teachers and Principal. Since last 15 years as some schools have become very coveted for admission, the administrations have lost the humane touch. In the name of discipline, we have gone very far from our students. Why are the Principals not humane and accessible for students? Why do they sit in their glass houses which muffle all the voices coming from outside? If the Principal was accessible, if the teachers were responsive, loving and kind to their students they would have certainly responded to the gasps of a young student suffering from an attack of Asthma and rushed her for an emergency treatment in the school transport before it was too late.

But the administration of highbrow schools is becoming progressively arrogant. There is a show of money power in the schools. Big lobbies likethose of five star hotels welcome you as you enter such schools and you wait there, facing worse than a Government office hierarchy to meet the Principal. If we do not wake up to the fact of going closer to our students we will have many more such incidents.

Is modern technology with an impersonal computer announcing the rules and homework enough? No, we need teachers and principals to understand the needs of students. We need mutual warmth and trust so that students should be able to share their problems with their teachers and get urgent attention. When schools are charging such high fees why don’t they have proper arrangements for an emergency.

Beyond this problem of current callousness are some more still worst fears. Parents will have to be very vigilant that the students who have dared to raise their voice against the callous behaviour of the teachers and principal are not ill-treated and meted out suffering by the teachers and school administration with taunts and poor assessment once the present outcry subsides. This will leave further scars on the psyche of the students who are already shattered by the incident.

Unfortunately, we do not take responsibility of our mistakes. We always find scape goats. And thus the same mistakes keep getting repeated.

We need orientation programs for teachers and principals so that they learn to love and respect themselves in order to love the lives trying to bloom around them.

Advertisement