'80 pc students in school face humiliation'

Over 80 per cent  students in schools across the country are humiliated by teachers who tell them that they are not capable of learning, a study conducted by the national child rights body has said.

Even the “cruel practice” of giving electric shocks finds a mention in the yet-to-be released study on the practice of corporal punishment brought out by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

According to the survey conducted in 2009-10 academic year, only nine out of 6,632 students in seven states who were surveyed denied that they received any kind of punishment in schools.

Definition

The NCPCR defines corporal punishment as any physical punishment, mental harassment and discrimination of children causing both physical and mental harassment.

The survey was conducted to study the scale and magnitude of corporal punishment in the everyday school experiences of Indian children, types of violent punishment prevailing in Indian schools and analyse by age the prevalence of different types of punishments among school children.

It said 99.86 per cent of children reported experiencing one or the other kind of punishment. As many as 81.2 per cent of children were subjected to outward rejection by being told that they are not capable of learning.

Getting beaten by a cane, being slapped on the cheeks, being hit on the back and ears and getting boxed are the other four major punishments, it said.

Four punishments

“These four punishments do not lag behind much in terms of their occurrence. Out of the total, 75 per cent reported that they had been hit by a cane and 69 per cent had been slapped on their cheeks,” the survey said.

A senior NCPCR official said they will be coming up with ‘“guidelines for Eliminating Corporal Punishment in Schools” on Monday.