School excesses

We must all collectively hang our heads in shame over the violence endured by a class-IX student of the City District Government Girls School, Kot Shahabdin, Shahdara. Because the 14-year-old schoolgirl refused to clean the classroom, she was allegedly pushed from the third floor of a school building by two teachers. Mercifully, the child has survived the fall but is now battling for her life in hospital. She has received multiple fractures and her spinal cord is also broken, say doctors. For its part, the police have rightly booked the two teachers in a case of attempted murder. Punjab Secretary Education (schools) Dr Allah Bakhsh Malik told the media that the two senior teachers — Rehana Kausar and Bushra Tufail — first inflicted corporal punishment on Fajjar Noor and then took her to the top (third) floor of the school building and pushed her down.

Some days back, a clip had appeared on social media where a teacher at a Madrassa was beating children and hanging them upside down if they did not do well in class. Needless to say the clip caused an uproar and the teacher was arrested by the police. Unfortunately these are not isolated incidents and in many ways represent the tip of the iceberg. Corporal punishment continues to thrive in our schools and Madrassas and very little is being done to check this. Most parents whose children are on the receiving end would rather suffer in silence than earn the wrath of the teachers by questioning their behaviour. It is incumbent on the relavant education department to try proactively work towards a violence-free classroom so that our children are not afraid enrol and attend schools. A helpline should be established and an awareness campaign launched so that perpetrators of such crimes are identified and punished.

The two teachers who threw their student from the third floor should be dismissed from service. Such sadistic behaviour should not be tolerated.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2017.

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