PANAJI: The cases pertaining to teachers beating up students in Goan schools have drastically come down during the past one year following immediate retaliation from the parents of the ‘victim’ students, and further action by the authorities including Goa Children’s Court and Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Incidentally, in what could be such first incident in the state, Eliza Fernandes, a teacher from a city-based school, was recently sentenced by the Goa Children’s Court to one-year simple imprisonment with a fine of Rs 1 lakh for physically and psychologically abusing a two-and-a-half-year-old student of the school in 2012.
Coming out with the information related to the recent cases of corporal punishment meted out to students in local schools, which were handled by the department of education, a senior official of the department said that since 2014, two such cases came up before the department.
CASE 1 (2015): A drawing teacher from the department of art and culture was teaching in the class of a Pissurlem-based high school when two boy students started fighting with each other. When the teacher went to mediate, he was roughly pushed aside. Just then, the headmaster of the school who was passing by the particular class got the classroom and lashed the students with a stick.
CASE 2 (2014): A music teacher in a Keri-based high school slapped on the upper arm of a girl student when she slammed a door, which resulted in hurting the fingers of a fellow student.
The DoE official, who inquired both these cases, said that both these cases incidentally took place in schools located in the Sattari taluka, and both the involved schools were government schools.
“The department of education had to hear our the cases since the institutions were government schools, and the director of education is the appointing/disciplinary authority for such schools,” the official added, stating that whenever such complaints are received it is mandatory for the police to take up these cases, as the police are competent authorities to collect the related evidence, including getting the medical examination of the victim done.
“In case 1, when the medical examination of the boys were carried out, no marks of the lashes were found, and further it was established that a burn-mark found on a student was due to some other incident,” the DoE official claimed pointing out that the local sarpanch and local media tried to fuel the incident, but the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence.
“In case 2, the matter is still under prosecution,” it was informed.
The DoE official said that when the institution is an aided school, the chairman of the school managing committee is the appointing/ disciplinary authority and hears the cases of corporal punishment.
“However, if the chairman decides to suspend the teacher involved in corporal punishment, he or she will have to approach the director of education, who in turn then listens to both involved parties before deciding the matter,” the official noted. “And then if the institution is a non-aided school then the aggrieved party – mostly parents of the ‘victim’ child – approach the legal authorities such as Goa Children’s Court and Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights,” it was informed, “And although the commission is only a recommending body and cannot pass verdicts it has done so in the past on few occasions.”
Incidentally, the Goa Children’s Act and the Goa, Daman, and Diu School Education Rules, 1986 have both banned corporal punishment in schools.
On a parting note, the DoE official said that he has also encountered a parent – a native from Rajasthan – who mercilessly slapped his son studying in a Goan school before the teacher for some mistake, and further remarked that his own teachers in Rajasthan used to beat the students in order to discipline them.
Although the old saying, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ is no longer the guiding force for teachers and statistics shows drop in the cases of corporal punishment in Goan schools, there could still be few such incidents taking place and going unnoticed, especially if the students are from the lower class, or their parents afraid to take up the matter with the authorities.