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Don't touch, just teach

Last Updated 15 February 2012, 14:08 IST

Following the recent incident of a school principal misbehaving with his students, many city-based schools have taken stringent measures to ensure the safety of their wards, and to prevent similar occurrences. Topping the list: don’t touch children irrespective of circumstances. Shruthi Balakrishna reports.

Recently, Bangaloreans woke up to the shocking story of a school principal misbehaving with his students. According to media reports, the principal would call children many times a day to his chamber.

He was also accused of sending indecent mails to some of his students. He was arrested when parents of a student lodged a complaint against him for forcing their son to speak about sex. Shockingly, none of the teachers noticed children going in and out of the principal’s chamber. Or were they simply keeping quiet out of fear?

Around the globe, there have been numerous such incidents of principals/teachers sexually abusing children. This has become a serious concern for parents and school managements. In order to prevent any such untoward incident, schools in the city have brought in stringent norms and counselling programmes for children.

To begin with, some schools have introduced a clause in their contract clearly stating that teachers cannot touch students. “At the time of appointment, we strictly tell the teachers and principals not to touch students no matter what the provocation,’’ a school management member, on conditions of anonymity, said.

“Earlier, to discipline children, teachers would pinch/pull their ears or thrash them with a scale. After some serious injuries were reported in newspapers due to corporal punishment, and now with charges of sexual abuse coming in from a school, our school has become very strict. In case of any problem, the teacher can write / call the parents,” he added.

New Horizon Gurukul principal, P S Khot, said that sometimes there could be room for misunderstanding if a teacher (male) touches a student unintentionally. “In order to avoid this, we clearly spell out the do’s and don’ts to teachers at the time of their appointment. This includes not having any physical contact with the students — even if it’s a handshake,’’ he said. Echoing similar views, Gear Innovative International School principal Srinivasan M said that there is “no room for touching the children at all.’’

In addition to this, schools have tightened the recruitment process and a thorough background check and verifications are done. Mansoor Ali Khan, member, Board of Management, Delhi Public School, said, “We do a thorough verification of the teachers. In some cases, we take the help of the police for verification. If any school is recruiting teachers from abroad, then the background check should be more elaborate.’’

However, Srinivasan was of the opinion that one cannot go by track record alone. “One of the best ways is to take preventive measures and make teachers feel more responsible,’’ he said.

Even as schools highlighted the need for a background check of teachers, a few schools said they preferred to recruit only women teachers. “We avoid recruiting male teachers in our school. Women teachers are known to be more compassionate than male teachers.

Moreover, it’s safer to have women teachers especially if it’s a co-education institution,” a school principal said. However, Indus International School CEO Lt Gen Arjun Ray begs to differ on this and said, “It’s very important to have teachers of both sexes as having only male / female teachers has its merits and demerits.”

As one of the preventive measures, Ray stressed on addressing smaller issues first as they tend to become bigger later on. “If a teacher notices something wrong, he/she must immediately inform the superior. Generally, these things cannot be hidden.”

Further, he said that the schools should provide counseling to the teachers and also have more counselors on hand so that various problems of the children can be addressed. “A good counselor will also be able to detect any problem in children immediately. Hence, the need for effective counseling,’’ he added.

In some schools, counseling is initiated from Class 6 onwards. During the counseling, children are taught about “good touch / bad touch”, health and hygiene especially for girls, etc.  Above all, they are taught to speak up if they encounter any such incident.
Some schools have also gone a step ahead and decided to create an environment where teachers as well as children can walk up to the management and speak freely regarding any issue. Moreover, some of them even have regular teacher-parent interactions. 

Psychologists strongly feel that besides schools, parents have a huge role to play.

According to Dr Lata Hemchand, a clinical psychologist, parents should also counsel their children on what is safe and unsafe. “They should start speaking to children about these things from age 8 onwards,’’ she said.

Agreeing that most parents do get involved with children, she said that it’s important for children to feel free to talk to their parents. “Parents have to create an environment from the beginning so that if there is any issue the child can unhesitatingly approach them. Also, when a child shares his or her opinion or experience, the parent should respond to it rather than getting shocked or reacting to it,’’ she explained.

Dharitri Ramaprasad, clinical psychologist said that these things do not go unnoticed as there will be a change in children’s behaviour. “Parents should take cognizance of this and find out what’s bothering the child. For this, parents should provide space so that children can speak up,’’ she added.

With stringent rules and counseling, unpleasant incidents in school can be put to an end. After all, every child has a right to enjoy his or her childhood.

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(Published 15 February 2012, 14:08 IST)

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