Assam Government to ban corporal punishment in schools

By Peter Alex Todd
Guwahati (Assam), Aug.2 (ANI): Consequent to a survey report that revealed corporal punishment being rampant in most of the schools across the Assam State, the Government has plans to put a ban on it.

Corporal punishment is banned in States such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh in the north, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in the south and Orissa and West Bengal in the east of India.

The survey carried by the Guwahati High Court’s Law Research Institute (LRI) in four districts of Assam revealed that children are often subjected to physical punishment in the schools.
Dr. Jeoti Baruah, Director, Law Research Institute, Guwahati High Court, said that after analysing the survey report, they found that 69 percent of the school children confessed corporal punishment existed in their schools. “What is more alarming is that the students feel that the punishment given to them by teachers is justified, as it is them who are at fault,” Dr. Jeoti Baruah.

There are many schoolteachers who agree that teachers should take extra care while dealing with students. “Corporal punishment should be there but it should not be extreme. The teachers are also responsible. At time they tend to get overexcited and even end up injuring the children. The teachers should be careful while punishing the children,” said Uttam Teron, a teacher of Parijat Academy in Guwahati.

Assam’s Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently expressed his desire to follow the footsteps of other States and impose a ban on corporal punishment in all the schools of the state.“We want to abolish the corporal punishment or physical punishment in schools. Some states have already started the process also, but I want to follow that step also,” said The Assam CM.

According to a nationwide survey conducted by the Educational Research Centre, cases of corporal punishment between 1990 and 2003 stand at an alarmingly high rate of 700 to 1000 incidents annually. (ANI)