Victims of sexual abuse, students have exposed the rot in Haryana govt schools

Geetanjali Gayatri

SCHOOL education in Haryana is at a low ebb and the system seems to be failing the very students whose future it should be building. The back-to-back multiple sexual harassment cases reported from government schools in Jind and Kaithal have exposed the rot in the system and laid bare the vulnerability of girl students in these schools.

Bound together by circumstances, though their ordeal unfolded a month apart and nearly 100 km away, the girl students of Jind and Kaithal finally decided that they had had enough. Finding their voices stifled by conventional norms in patriarchal Haryana, they fought back, writing letters with details of their harassment to wake up a system in complete slumber.

“Our principal did not ‘discriminate’ and shamelessly harassed girls aged 10-12 years, while hardly any senior girl student was spared the torture of being abused and touched inappropriately. He would hurl the choicest of abuses and threatened us with holding back our roll numbers for the board examinations, as also our school leaving certificates, if we did not grin and bear his ways and words,” one of the four complainants in the Kaithal school says.

Several junior students of the school have their own stories to narrate. “He was a very bad man. He tried to grab me while I was helping serve the mid-day meal one day but backed off because one of the cooks happened to come in at the exact moment,” recalls a Class VI student.

Another girl who was abused by the principal says, “Our parents would come to school to raise this issue. While he would never face them, the teachers would convince our parents that their grievances would be addressed. That never happened and our class decided to take things in own hands.”

No teacher or official enrols their children in govt schools. The students mostly come from very poor backgrounds. That explains why the standard of education never improves. Mother of a student

At the Kaithal school, the entire class got together and decided unanimously that they had to “save” themselves and their juniors from the clutches of the principal. “We would have passed out from school in another three months. We realised that the juniors would never be able to make enough noise to get this principal booked. So we wrote a letter highlighting his misdeeds. We gave one copy to the school incharge and another to the village sarpanch. Thankfully, he took up the complaint while the school incharge only sat on it,” one of the complainants of the co-education school explains.

In the Jind case, the girls sent out anonymous letters to several quarters, hoping these would be picked up by some department. Finally, the state women’s commission took note and passed it on to the district administration, leading to the principal’s arrest.

While the principal of the Jind school had allegedly been carrying out his nefarious activities for nearly six years, the Kaithal principal had been posted over a year back to this particular school and “started assaulting the students” within a couple of months of his joining.

The behaviour of both the principals went unnoticed by the department since no inspection of any kind is carried out in government schools. Most of the visits remain confined to paper. If at all an official of the District Education Department visits the school, it is limited to a brief meeting with the principal over tea.

“We can’t recall any official coming to our school ever. We have never seen anybody on our premises. We have never seen or interacted with the District Education Officer, the Block Education Officer or anybody else from the department. Had somebody come and spoken to us, we would have raised this issue,” says a Class IX student. The entire school and staff, she adds, were so troubled over the treatment meted out to them that they would have blurted out everything. However, that chance never came and they continued to suffer in silence till they finally gathered courage to come out in the open about their plight.

The lack of inspection by district officials of the Education Department, the defunct school management committees and the non-availability of a complaint redressal mechanism, including the student-centric anti-sexual harassment committees and complaint boxes, are standout features of the crumbling edifice of school education in the state in general and these schools in particular.

“I stay in the village and had indirectly been conveying to the mothers that all is not well at school. The principal repeatedly threatened us that with his one signature, we would be out of this school and there were many takers for this job of cooking and cleaning for the mid-day meal. We could not openly raise a banner of revolt against the principal but we tried to convey this to the parents indirectly. It would trouble us to see the girls being forced to serve the principal and his contractor friend tea and lunch in the school lab where they would misbehave with the girls, but we had to choose between keeping our jobs and remaining mum,” confides a mid-day meal worker.

The poor results and lack of accountability of the teachers, the falling standards of teaching as also the non-availability of sufficient teaching staff have crippled the system further over the past many years.

The parents also hold a grudge against the teachers of the two schools for remaining silent on the matter. While the teachers in the Jind school feigned ignorance (the girl students had named a few teachers whose help they had sought), those in Kaithal expressed their helplessness in dealing with the allegations against the principal fearing a backlash.

The teachers in the Jind school claimed they had never “heard or seen” anything during the school hours since the students had not brought anything to their notice. The teachers in Kaithal said the principal misbehaved with the students and staff alike. “We tried to approach him and explain that his conduct was not acceptable, that the complaints of parents were repeatedly pouring in and that he needed to mend his ways. He, however, ignored our pleas. Of late, we had started to avoid him since persisting with the complaints would have meant he could have got us transferred out,” a teacher stated.

While the staff members at the Jind school have been transferred after the parents raised this demand before a fact-finding committee of the Education Department, the villagers have raised a similar demand regarding the Kaithal school since they “don’t trust the teachers with the security of their wards anymore”.

“We come from a very humble background. Our children sometimes don’t even sleep on a full stomach. We send them to school thinking the teachers will take care of them and any of their concerns. Some of them do so by helping out with books or jerseys. However, their silence has come as a shock to us and our faith in them is shaken,” the mother of a student from Kaithal stated.

The villagers add that the Education Department officials should be asked to explain for failing to discharge their duties of monitoring the schools through inspections.

In the 14,500 government schools (Haryana has nearly 10,000 private schools, too) across the state, with an 89,000-strong teaching force (56 per cent of them male teachers), the quality of education being offered remains a casualty at most places.

The pass percentage of Class X and XII is in the range of 65 to 75 per cent and desks and benches still elude many students in government schools.

“None of the teachers or officials enrol their wards in government schools. The students seeking admission to government schools mostly come from very poor backgrounds. That explains why the standard of education never improves and the teachers, grappling with shortage of staff, either don’t take classes or don’t do justice to their jobs. But we don’t have the money to send our children to private schools in the vicinity. After these two incidents, the government and the Education Department should take a look at the way schools across the state are functioning. Also, they must put in place a system of regular checks and inspections while ensuring the right mix of male and female teachers. Women principals should be deputed in all the girls’ schools,” says the mother of a student from Jind.

In Kaithal, of the 16 teachers, there is only one female teacher. Her husband is also teaching at the same school.

Commenting on the unfortunate developments, Satpal Sindhu, president, Haryana School Lecturer Association, said both the incidents were appalling not only for the teaching fraternity, but also for other sections of society as schools are considered “temples of education” where children learn about moral values and etiquettes.

“In view of such shocking incidents, there is an urgent need to have a mandatory condition of teachers and principals undergoing psychological tests at regular intervals so as to ascertain their frame of mind. Girl students should also be trained about good and bad touch. They should be motivated to inform their parents and other teachers immediately about the perpetrator on sensing unusual and abnormal behaviour of any employee towards them,” he added.

Sindhu called for regular awareness and sensitisation camps, but evaded questions on why the teachers remained silent and on the issue of accountability.

Meanwhile, the School Education Department claims it is in the process of finalising a programme to sensitise teachers about various laws, including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. It says efforts will be made to activate the school management committees, place complaint boxes in every school and constitute panels to deal with sexual harassment.

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