After having been in the news for treating his school-going daughter a bit too harshly by ‘introducing’ her to begging for not taking academics seriously, a father in a hurry woke up otherwise sober Mysore to the relationship between parents and children turning increasingly flaky.
Added to this, the maxim ‘Acharya Devobhava’ may not be totally true today, but the atmosphere in educational institutions in this seat of learning for long has not reached the levels of ‘violence’ yet. While colleges and universities speak a different language altogether, schools are still largely sane. Says Rachana, an English teacher at a private school, there have been no instances of students getting violent with teachers.
Shockers all
But the slate is not just as clean everywhere. In January this year, the Principal of the Sudhir Ranjan Lahiri College in Majdia in Nadia district of West Bengal was attacked by some students when he ‘objected’ to outsiders entering the college premises during an examination.
He was caught by his collar, dragged out of an examination hall and beaten up by suspected Students Federation of India activists. In another incident in mid-February, a Chemistry teacher of Chanchal in Malda was thrashed by ‘Chhatra Parishad’ of Trinamul Congress, for boycotting classes in protest.
Tit for tat
Ask any kid to draw a picture of his/her teacher, the picture will never be complete without a stick in the hand.
While many children become victims of this age old ‘teaching technique’ using cane, the incidents of children revolting has slowly started showing up, even if they are isolated incidents.
Kabeer, a six-year-old studying in a Mumbai school, feared Maths. His mother decided to send him to a 70-year-old retired teacher living in their apartment.
Though initially enthusiastic, Kabeer’s interest began to flag and he complained that his tuition teacher beat him because his handwriting was not legible.
“I can’t be better than this,” he told his parents but they continued to send him to the same teacher. One day, when the teacher caned him on his knuckles and asked why he could not improve, Kabeer plucked the cane and hit his teacher.
Faculty pay for checking cheating
Cheating during the examinations of the Uttar Pradesh Board, the biggest board in the world, is a common feature and the teachers, who dare to check the malpractise or nab the cheaters, have come under attack from the students and the ‘nakal mafia’ (organised gangs that help students in copying for money).
Several attacks on teachers have been reported during the ongoing Board examinations for 10th and 12th standard.
A teacher had a miraculous escape after some Class XII students, irked over not being allowed to use unfair means, waylaid him while he was taking the answer scripts for safe deposit and opened fire at him in Lakhimpur-Kheri district, about 150 km from Lucknow, a few days ago. The teacher Mahendra Prakash Singh managed to escape. The students tore the answer books and damaged the vehicle before fleeing the spot.
In another incident, a teacher was attacked with iron rods in Noida a few days back allegedly by a student, who had been caught cheating during the exam. The teacher Ajai Kumar suffered serious injuries and had to be rushed to hospital.
(Inputs: Preethi Nagaraj in Mysore, Saibal Gupta in Kolkata, Bhakti Hegde in Mangalore, Sanjay Pandey in Lucknow.)
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