Society

The Gender Row: School As Ghetto

An epidemic of rapes: but is barring male teachers in girls' schools the remedy?

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The Gender Row: School As Ghetto
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  • Last fortnight, Rishi Sagar, manager of the privately-run Vishvas Senior Secondary School in Hissar, Haryana, was found sexually molesting girls of classes V and VI in his office. His unfailing lure: the promise of giving them question papers in advance.
  • In February, two teachers of Durjanpur village in the Jind district of Haryana were found to have been raping seven schoolgirls for several months in the health education room. The truth came out when some girls got pregnant.
  • In April, Prabhjot, a girl studying in Phillaur Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Punjab, was allegedly poisoned to death by her teacher Harbhajan Singh who had been sexually exploiting her for several months. Prabhjot was apparently pregnant. All the education department did on learning about the teacher's deeds was to transfer him to another village. Only when the town rose up in protest after Prabhjot's death was he arrested by the police.
  • Chudiali village in Ambala district, Haryana, erupted with anger in February this year when a schoolmaster raped a 15-year-old girl from his school. He reportedly offered her a lift on his scooter to a nearby school where she had to appear for an exam, but instead took her to a sugarcane field.

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Rishi Sagar, accused of raping students of Vishvas Senior Secondary School in Hissar, Haryana, being taken to court

Says Kiran Bedi, director general, bureau of police research and development: "There should be a mix of both men and women to teach girls because eventually they have to work and deal with men in society. The solution to the problem, however, has to come from within society, via organised bodies like committees against sexual harassment with parents and teachers part of it." Besides, she asks, where does this leave the current campaign to remove gender distinctions in the two states, which have the lowest female sex ratios? Adds noted educationist Dr J.N. Joshi: "At a time when modern teacher training programmes stress on co-education and removal of gender differences, restricting male teachers from teaching girls isn't a healthy step. It would be better if speedy and severe punishment is meted out to offenders."

Activists are demanding that Gender Sensitisation Committees Against Sexual Harassment (GS CASH) being formed in all universities following a Supreme Court directive be extended to schools as well. Dr Reicha Tanwar, director of the Women's Study Centre at Kurukshetra University, says that theGS CASH set up there a few years ago has been quite effective. "Redressal is within a time-frame and the committee's composition is routinely circulated within the campus. There should be similar committees in schools too," she says.

More cases of schoolgirls being sexually abused are being reported in Haryana as the Durjanpur incident has emboldened many others to speak out. Sustained campaigns by grassroots activists too has helped to bring the guilty to book. The state government has since dismissed four such teachers. In Punjab, the authorities have just begun to look at the problem. However, educationists in both states agree that the entire system needs an overhaul—teachers have to be made more accountable and sensitive, and appointments have to be made transparent: those having an anti-social background must be weeded out.

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