Class VII C, live and streaming

Amit Kumar Bardhan
Professor, Management Studies, University of Delhi

WHETHER we like it or not, we are captured in some cameras every day. We have got so used to it that hardly anyone bothers about this snooping. Has this been useful? It must be, otherwise security and surveillance cameras would not be selling the way they are these days. What would happen if there were no cameras inside Metro trains is anybody's guess. True, because it is not easy to estimate what is prevented. In case of cameras for schools, the Government of Delhi seems to be certain that they are good, even inside classrooms.

In this year’s budget, the Delhi government has decided to put 150 cameras in every school that it runs. The motive is ensuring the safety of children along with enhancing the quality of education. 

Crime against kids

Crime against children is on the rise. Delhi leads the metropolitans in this notoriety. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, the city accounted for a whopping 38.7 per cent of the cases recorded in metro cities in 2016, more than double the percentage attributed to its closest peer Mumbai.

Crime committed by juveniles is also growing at an alarming rate. Delhi is again at the top of the table. The government's concern is, therefore, well placed, but the measures it has suggested may not be so.

There is no data on how many crimes against children and those by juveniles have happened inside schools or their  periphery. There have been some horrendous incidents recently. Surveillance through cameras can act as deterrence for such acts. But the number of such incidents is minimal. Large expenses to be incurred for procuring and maintaining cameras need further justification.

Cameras at gates and around the periphery check intruders, trespassing, and vandalism of school properties, encroachments and abuse of tobacco, cigarettes and other narcotic substances. There have also been reports of parents of students attacking teachers and school administrators. Cameras inside the school can help check bullying. 

Pros and cons of livestreaming

The Delhi government's proposal goes a step further: to install cameras in classrooms and stream live pictures to the parents. This decision seems to have been taken without much deliberation and can have unintended and adverse consequences. After the cameras are installed and the linked mobile application gets running, parents can watch the proceedings in the classrooms of their wards. They can complain about anything that they find objectionable. The education minister and some officials of the ministry will have access too. According to the government this will make the whole system transparent and accountable and ensure the safety of children. 

There is an apparent positive to the move. Teachers coming late will be on record in the cameras. Teacher absenteeism is a vexing problem. There is perception that it is acute in the public funded schools. Unfortunately, there has not been many surveys to scientifically assess the problem. On the contrary, there are indications that the problem may not be as widespread as it is made to be especially in urban areas. 

But there are better ways of monitoring. Biometric attendance system and cameras on the corridors and outside classrooms can adequately do the job.

The views of teachers and students on the initiative are not available yet and are not expected soon. In our education system, these groups mostly express their views through agitations. It is expected that they too will get used to the cameras. But are they going to benefit? Will the school performance will be better? Will the students learn better? The answer is not straightforward and in all likelihood is in the negative.  

While it is true that parent participation can ensure better learning outcome in their wards, but real time access to the classroom would give them excessive information that most of them are unqualified to fathom. This can lead to frequent interference and subsequent degradation of learning. 

The role of the school administration has also not been discussed much. In a government school system, these individuals are not accountable to students, teacher or parents but to higher government officials. Therefore, they are expected to use the new data and information, most of which are open to subjective evaluations, for their own benefit rather than to improve academic productivity.  

Also, the importance of trust and respect in relationships between a student and a teacher, teachers and parents and any two stakeholders in the system cannot be ignored. Livestreaming has the genesis in trust deficit. Studies show that strengthening inter-personal relationships enhances academic productivity. When parent-teacher meetings were introduced, they were welcomed by all. Measures like this encourage the involvement of parents in their ward's education. Livestreaming of classroom proceedings will do an overkill.

Let trust prevail inside a classroom

In the absence of trust, an individual who is part of a social exchange would give more prominence to her or his self-interest. Teachers would avoid risk with pedagogical experiments, shun pursuing new ideas, avoid new experiments, lest they are judged any which way. Cameras in classrooms of coaching centres are common. Because these are places where everything needs to be done according to a precisely drafted schedule. Cameras should be outside and in classrooms we must ensure an environment of trust and respect.