Teachers turning monsters?

  When teachers turn monsters, what do we do? When innocent children are subjected to punishment that is nothing short of physical abuse and even torture, who do we turn to ? When our laws against teachers who commit such offences lack teeth, shouldn't we do something about them? We come to know of such cases only when they are reported in the media. Spare a thought for the thousands of cases that go unreported.

In the most recent instance in Hyderabad, a teacher of a private school had been charged with inflicting corporal punishment on a fifteen year-old student, which  led to his death.
Corporal punishment is nothing but causing physical pain or suffering. This could take the form of beating, thrashing or even whipping. Corporal punishment is a widespread practice in schools across the country and teachers seldom realize that physical abuse or punishment can scar students for life.
Teachers seemed to have forgotten their role in contemporary society. They resort to corporal punishment to vent their own frustrations or cover up their incompetence. Teaching requires patience and a capacity to communicate with clarity. But when it gets reduced to a chore and one that is driven by the compulsions of syllabus-completion, teachers, many of them untrained for the job, resort to corporal punishment.
In trying to outdo each other, schools overload students with work and under-performers and stragglers tend to find themselves at the receiving end.  Very often, teachers think that there is no substitute to corporal punishment. What does this tell us? It only goes to show that we do not have a proper teacher-training system in place. As a nation, we need to put a proper system of training our teachers keeping the future of the next generation in mind. We should put platitudes aside and train teachers through a well-structured system, before it is too late.
In the olden  days  informal  schools  where  they happened to  teach only  “Pedda Bala Siksha” and  Basic mathematics produced many talented officers and  wise  men for the  country. Not that  students  studying in  schools are not wise  and  great  but taking the  student’s  educational caliber the teaching  standards cannot meet their performance.
Moreover, such kind of punishment may sometimes physically spoil a student for his whole life. Psychologists are of the opinion that such a sentence can affect a student mentally, for a very long period of time.
In India Corporal punishment has become a common feature in schools. Several incidents of physical attacks have been reported in the by the media. Not one state in India on a whole we find many such activities taking place.
For instance, headmaster trashed out a boy with a cable wire. Two students’ sustained injuries when they were thrashed with a cable wire by their headmaster for not wearing uniforms, it is unofficially known. Though it is an important  aspect following the rules and regulations but acting beyond the limits is unethical. This happened in Guntur district.
A student of class XII from a popular school in Udaipur and a student from Delhi Municipality Corporation School died due to the over beating, they received from their school teacher. This is shocking. In another incident, a class XI student in Ahmadabad accused a teacher of having hit him so hard that he suffered a temporary loss of hearing. Making a student kneel down or stand for hours, pinching and slapping are all set to be banned under plans to widen the definition of Corporal punishment in schools.
However the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended a code of regulations on the conduct of teachers in schools. A prominent feature of the code is a total ban on corporal punishment. So far, only six Indian states have banned the cane in schools. Corporal Punishment is just another form of physical violence and has no place in a progressive society.
Corporal punishment does not have any positive effect on a student. If further worsens the situation. For instance, a student who is very naughty, or least interested in studies, when subjected to corporal punishment, may become more aggressive in nature. He may even leave the school and studies. Nonetheless, such a severe decision can be disastrous for a child's future. Corporal punishment may even cause permanent physical disorders in a child.
For example, hard slapping upon the ears can make him totally deaf for the rest of his life. Harsh whipping or canning in the hands and legs can damage the bones and muscles paralyzing him totally.
Bhargavi@sakshipost